The Endeavors of Art
by Alex Checnkov
Summary: Complete. The Omaticaya Clan rebuilds, and Norm and the remaining humans carve out their role in their newly adopted home. RDA has invested too much in Pandora to give up after one fight, however, and prepares its response to the Na'vi. OCs.
1. Pilot

Parker Selfridge took his place in the last group of dejected occupants of Hell's Gate to board the Valkyrie for the ISV _Venture Star_. It was in orbit awaiting the final loads of unobtanium before returning to Earth; instead, it would be carrying the expelled humans back home.

Parker avoided eye contact with the Na'vi who stood by to oversee the evacuation. When he walked by Jake Sully's avatar, however, he paused. He turned to look at Jake and considered making a final plea. Had he forgotten all of his humanity? How could he condemn his home world to the social upheaval the coming energy crisis would create? He thought about dozens of things he wanted to say to him, but Jake's expression was resolute; and so, without a word, Parker continued on to the Valkyrie.

Once all were aboard, the ship's crew – some of the few surviving pilots of the security team – left the tarmac and made for the interstellar vehicle. While the employees and surviving security personnel headed for the cryogenics bay, Parker headed for the _Venture Star_'s command center. Human control was only necessary for the first and final stages of travel; the rest was automated.

Parker got a cool reception when he entered the command center, but ignored it. "Who's running communications?" A hand went up. "Have you sent any messages home, yet?"

"No," a crewman said. "We were waiting for you."

Parker walked over to the communications station. "We'll keep it simple. 'Evacuation underway. No more shipments. Total loss.' Got it?"

"Got it." The crewman typed the message into his console. The vehicle's computer would translate the message into an evolved Morse code to be flashed back to Earth by a high-powered laser on the ship's hull. The message could be seen by a number of observatories in Earth's orbit and on the Southern Hemisphere; but to prevent decoding by RDA's few competing organizations, the message would be broken down into numeric codes which could only be decrypted by RDA. It would give the company a year and change to prepare the announcement to the world that unobtanium shipments would be delayed. It would give the governments of the world time to brace for the economic disaster.

"How many ISVs are inbound?"

"Four. Three are outbound, and the remaining one is being prepped in Earth orbit."

"Send a message to the four inbound ISVs to turn around. If there's no unobtanium, there's no point in leaving them here." Each interstellar vehicle had the same decryption ability as the Earth observatories. The light messages were the only way to communicate with the vehicles while they were in flight. Early space explorations had demonstrated that most other communication methods could not survive intact far beyond the Sun's bow shock. The discovery was a fatal blow to the SETI program.

"Done."

"Boss," another crewmember called out, "the computer's finished calculating our trajectory to Earth, and all non-essential personnel are in cryo. We're ready to launch when you give the say-so."

"Yeah, get us out of here."

As the _Venture Star_ turned towards Earth and the crew worked through the departure checklist, Parker watched as Pandora fell out of view, blocked by the giant shield at the rear of the ship. "We're beginning acceleration," the pilot called out. "The antimatter drive will engage in about twenty minutes."

The ship's announcement system called out, "All crewmembers must proceed to their designated cryogenic chambers."

"That's it, people," Parker said. "Move it." He was the last one to enter a designated chamber.

He had been on Pandora for six years, and all that he had worked for was destroyed in less than a week. "It doesn't make sense," he said as the chamber automatically prepared him for the cryogenic stasis. "They were a bunch of goddamned monkeys."

It was fortunate for Parker that a side-effect of cryo sleep was a lack of any dreams. Otherwise, the next five years, nine months, and twenty-two days would have been very restless.

* * *

Jake was looking up at the night sky when the _Venture Star_'s antimatter engine kicked in. A flash like a meteor exploding in the atmosphere appeared, soundless, and slowly dissipated into a blue-green gas. Eventually the artificial phenomenon was rendered invisible by Pandora's bioluminescent ecosystem. However, he must have stared for too long, because he was startled when Neytiri's placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Jake, you are very distant," she said. "You should be happy. You are about to be born as a true Na'vi."

He turned and offered a smile for his mate. "I am happy," he said. "But they'll be back, and I'm worried about what they will bring with them."

"It will take a long time for them to return." She placed her hands on his cheeks, "Until then, care for our people. And for tonight, my Jake, be happy."

Jake took her hands in his and leaned forward to rest his brow against hers. "I will always be happy while I am with you."

They walked together towards the Hell's Gate compound, where Norm stood with a handful of Omaticaya warriors and their direhorses.

Norm stepped forward. "Are you ready, Jake?"

"I am."

Neytiri took hold of his right arm, and a warrior stepped forward to hold his left. Norm spoke into his communicator to an avatar pilot in the Link Room. For a moment, the world became black; but as his vision recovered, he could see his Link open with Max was leaning over him.

"Are you ready to go?" Max asked as Jake got into his wheelchair.

"Just one second," he replied as he moved towards a video log station. "Grace would have wanted me to record all of this while it was fresh."

* * *

Jake was never comfortable with being carried. Not when he had to be carried from the battlefields of Venezuela, and not before he had completed physical therapy at the Marine and Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. However, as it was Neytiri carrying him towards the Tree of Souls, he was at least at ease.

His eyes met those of several Na'vi warriors, when a thought came to him. He looked up at Neytiri and asked, "Do you think they see me?"

She smiled down at him, "Yes, they see you."

He was the only human there. Even though Norm and the others were allowed to stay on Pandora, they were not allowed at the Tree of Souls; not even for Jake's birthday. Despite Neytiri's assurance, he could not help but think what some of the Na'vi warriors had to think at the sight of Jake's broken, human body. Would it lessen their respect for the sixth Toruk Makto, the Omaticaya's soon-to-be olo'eyktan, or increase it? Perhaps it would all be moot in a matter of minutes.

When Neytiri set him down at the base of the Tree of Souls and beside his avatar, he could not help but recall Grace's death. He must have let the memory unsettle him too visibly, for Mo'at put her hand on his shoulder and said, "You are strong, Jakesully. Put your faith in Eywa."

He nodded and replied, "I am ready."

Soon after the ritual to transfer his consciousness from his human body to his avatar began, as his body was overtaken by the many queues of the Tree of Souls creating an ultimate Tsahaylu between him and Eywa, Jake felt himself overcome by a great calm. Whereas there had always been darkness when the Link transferred him from one body to the next, this time there was an intense light. He could feel the presence of thousands of spirits of long-departed warriors gathered about him; but above them all, he could feel Grace's there with him.

An instant later, Jake was born as a Na'vi.

The Omaticaya cheered when he stood up in his new body – no longer a mere avatar – and was soon joined by Neytiri. Words failed them both, so they embraced as mates. Looking over Neytiri's shoulder, Jake saw his human body lying still.

Even though the warriors' reaction to him assuaged his earlier concerns, he was unprepared for how the sight of his body affected him. He let go of Neytiri to lean over the body – his body – and removed the respirator which had kept it alive in this place. He was suddenly aware of the frailty of his old body, the life which in recent months had become ever more like a dream to him; a nightmare of confinement and limistations. Regardless of the hardships he had experienced, he realized it was harder to let go of his past than he had expected.

Mo'at, standing behind him, said, "We will bury it like we do the bodies of our warriors."

Jake nodded and stood up. "He was a warrior." He reached over and took Neytiri's hand in his, "I will be a leader of the people."

* * *

Norm and Max sat in the deserted Hell's Kitchen with the few humans who were allowed to stay on Pandora, the avatar pilots; barely twenty people in all.

"Do you think it was successful?" Max asked.

"I'm sure it was," Norm replied. "Doctor Augustine was just too weak. It would have worked for her otherwise."

One of the avatar pilots spoke up, "If only they hadn't destroyed the other avatars during the shitfest, maybe we could have gotten the same treatment. " She leaned back in her chair. "Imagine living the rest of your life as one of them."

Norm shook his head, "No, they accepted Jake. They never really accepted us. We would have been outsiders."

"We still are," she said. "Living in a deserted human outpost that none of them have any reason to visit?"

"You could have gone back to Earth with everyone else," Max snapped back.

She laughed. "Yeah, I don't think I'd make it out of cryo with them."

Norm stood up. "Well, if you change your mind – if any of you do – I'm sure there will be another ship to take you back in eleven years, seven months, and however many days."

"No question about it," Max said. "Too much invested here to just let it all rot. They may even be here sooner than that, depending on whatever Selfridge had beamed back."

"Even if he told them everything," Norm said, "it will be four and a half years before RDA command really gets what's happened. Then they'll have to get new equipment together with a whole new security team. That will take a while."

"They'll do it," Max said. "And they'll do it damned quick, too. And who knows what kind of new stuff they've been building while we've been here."

"So that's our job," Norm said. "We've got to give them whatever we can to prepare them for RDA's return. We'll keep the stereolithography plant working as best we can, keep the communications station alive so we can stay in touch with Jake and the Na'vi, and hope we do enough."

"A lot of it will depend on them, though, and whether or not they accept the RDA as a living threat."

"Yeah," Norm said solemnly. "But I think Jake's up to it." He paused. "God, I hope he is."


	2. Damage Control

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

The _Venture Star_ began its deceleration from its maximum speed one week before approaching near Earth orbit. Nine hours away from Earth, the ship passed through Mars' orbit, and automatically released the crew from their cryogenic stasis. Four hours away from Earth, the crew began to run through the docking checklist, which included releasing the passengers from their cryogenic chambers, including Parker Selfridge's.

Parker's headache was almost crippling – it had been years since he experienced the unpleasantness of waking up from cryo – but he exited his chamber and made his way to the command center. "Where are we?"

"Twenty-six and change million kilometers from Earth," a crewmember in the navigation station called out, "and we are a little more than two hours away from being able to open up communications channels."

"Do we have any mail?"

"Nothing from Pandora – of course – but from Earth, yeah. RDA Central wants you to patch in as soon as we're in range."

Two hours later, the ship's communication station patched in to RDA. "There's a lag of about 10 seconds right now," the crewmember said, "but it will come down as we get closer and our frequencies synch up."

Parker took a seat at the station and waited for someone from RDA to patch in on Earth's end. "I don't think we'll be talking long enough for that to matter."

Not long after Parker was at his seat, the monitor came to life with a feed from the RDA's Board of Director's meeting room. Parker was shocked – not that the RDA's leadership was on the other line, but at how little they had appeared to age. It had been well more than a decade on Earth since Parker left for Pandora, and the Directors had barely aged. They had obviously used their impressive financial resources to fight off aging.

"Good morning, Parker," RDA Chairman James Savage, a man who could keep from aging but not fight off obesity, said. "You have a lot to explain." He was also right to the point.

"Yes sir, I do."

"'Total loss.' What the hell does that mean?"

"It means we were shut down. We had trouble maintaining control over, um, environmental hazards, and we couldn't sustain our operations."

"Don't talk to me like a bureaucrat, goddammit. What the hell happened up there?"

"The Na'vi kicked us out."

The pause was a lot longer than could be attributed to lag. The Directors exchanged looks of disbelief among each other. At the end of the silent cross-talking, Chairman Savage could only muster a weak, "What?"

"They attacked our colony, and gave us a choice: Leave or die."

"Quaritch was in charge of security. Where is he?"

"Dead. They killed him."

The chairman leaned back in his chair and rapped his knuckles on the table. "What about Dr. Augustine? She was supposed to be running interference and keep them pacified."

"She's also dead."

"Did they kill her?"

"Yes. It was, um," he paused to rub the back of his neck. "It's a lot to explain."

Again, there was a longer than expected pause. "Okay," the chairman said. "Well, start working on it. We're calling in all of the department heads to figure this out. It's still early morning here, but you should be back on terra firma a bit after lunch. We will be waiting."

The feed was cut.

Less than two hours later, the _Venture Star_ was in low Earth orbit, and Valkyries were sent up to disembark the ship's occupants. By order of the Board, Parker was on the first Valkyrie off the _Venture Star_. During the disembarkation, Parker got his first look at Earth since he was gone, and he was taken by how brown and desolate it appeared in comparison with Pandora.

The Valkyrie landed at RDA's main tarmac outside San Francisco, and from there a tram took Parker directly to the company's headquarters in downtown, a multi-city block complex that, at its heart, held the largest building on the West Coast. All the other employees were being routed to a holding hangar to be descended upon by lawyers with non-disclosure agreements and threats of crippling litigation for non-compliance.

Before he went to the boardroom, Parker stopped by the company store to grab a suit off the rack. From there, he had a security escort to the upper floors of the main building for the meeting with the Board.

True to his word, Chairman Savage and the rest of the Board were joined around the table by the heads of RDA's component departments. In most cases, a meeting like this would also include a cast of scores of support personnel to call up data and farm out assignments as they were handed down; however, the chairs behind the roundtable and along the walls were empty. He doubted if many people outside of this room were even aware of this meeting.

"Have a seat, Parker," the chairman said. He sounded casual enough, but Parker walked around the table until he came to a placard with his name on it. Seating was carefully plotted to denote seniority; and, despite having operated humanity's first off-Earth colony responsible for keeping all of human civilization from the brink of a total energy collapse, was the least senior person at the table.

Although he could recognize the Directors, most all of the department heads were new to him. Before they could be properly introduced, however, Chairman Savage started the meeting. "So, we got licked in combat. Did you have any warning before the attack?"

"The Na'vi were restless before it happened, but we were only dealing with a couple of tribes, so…"

"It was a surprise attack?"

"Basically, yes sir."

The chairman leaned back in his chair. "Here's what I can't get over, Parker. From all I've been told about the Na'vi, they're straight out of the Stone Age. You, on the other hand, had the best technology we have ever deployed, and hundreds of battle-hardened veterans on your security detail. You have the most experience with them, so can you tell us how they got the better of you?"

Parker paused to collect his thoughts. "Well, you know, even Custer got overrun," he said with a weak laugh.

"The Indians had better guns," someone at table said. "The Seventh Cavalry had single-shot rifles, but up to half of the attacking Sioux had repeating rifles."

Despite his subordinate status, Parker had been giving orders too long to be made to look stupid. He looked at the suit and said, "Thank you for the history lesson, Mister…"

"Abe Scheller, Chief of Asset Management and Information Security."

Parker felt his heart skip a beat. For the leaders of a company whose resources rivaled those of some developed nations, there was little to be afraid of. However, if someone ran afoul of management, AMIS would be sent to investigate. Like Marcellus commenting to Horatio about the state of Denmark, if a leader in RDA was told that, "There's something amiss in your department," bad things were soon to follow. Early retirements and forced relocations to remote RDA outposts were the norm after AMIS investigations; and whether or not they could pursue more prejudicial courses of action was the subject of many popular rumors.

Abe Scheller was not physically imposing, he was as clean cut as all of the other suits sitting at the table, but Parker was more afraid of him than Chairman Savage. "Thank you," he said, his attitude abruptly corrected. "But what's your point?"

"My point is that unless half of the Na'vi had an air force and armor piercing ammunition, how were you outclassed?"

"Well, they did have a kind of air force. Um, Banshees."

Abe raised an eyebrow. "Banshees?"

"They're kind of like dragons. Forty feet long, big teeth."

Abe let out a short laugh. "Did their fire breath shoot down all your Scorpions?" The others around the table chuckled. "Mister Chairman, if I can continue…"

"Sure."

"Thank you. I did a quick review of worker deaths on Pandora, and the overwhelming majority is from environmental hazards: animals, prolonged exposure to the noxious environment, and unintended discoveries of naturally occurring toxins. After that, it's mechanical accidents. In third place, a distant third, are deaths by the Na'vi. In truth, there were times that your guys were gunning them down maybe four-to-one – at least when you could find them.

"Like the Chairman said, you have more experience with the Na'vi than we do. Are they stupid?"

Parker was taken aback by the question. "What?"

"Are the Na'vi stupid? They may not have our technology, but do they at least have higher cognitive functions?"

"No, I understand the question," Parker said, barely keeping his tone cordial. "I just don't see why it matters. Yes, they're – they're crafty. I mean, they did kick us out. So what?"

"They didn't send an army after us when we first landed, and they didn't send an army after us when we started mining, so why did they send an army only after we built a forward base filled with armed guards and gunships?"

Parker didn't answer immediately, so the AMIS chief pressed on. "_So what_ did you do to piss them off?"

"Excuse me?" Parker said, his tone teeming with indignation.

Chairman Savage held his hand up, "Abe…"

"Sir," Abe interrupted, "if the Na'vi wanted to wipe us out for no other reason than because they didn't like us, they had years and ample opportunity to do it. Something had to set them off, something that would make them want to go toe-to-toe with our technology."

"Well, Mr. Scheller," Parker interjected, "one of your assumptions is wrong."

Abe held out a hand. "Enlighten me."

"Those savages had been attacking us from the beginning. We were pulling arrows out of our machines, and our guys, from the very beginning."

"I've seen those reports," he said. "In all cases, those attacks were by small hunting parties and as we extended into their territory. They never raided our base. It could be argued, from their point, that they were just protecting the sanctity of their land."

"You couldn't throw a damned stick in that forest without hitting something 'sacred!'" Parker said angrily, almost shouting. "We tried to be diplomatic about it, but they would even attack our avatars," Parker offered. "That's like attacking diplomats, right? If they're so innocent, explain that."

"Our first batch of avatar drivers didn't have the right cultural appreciation. That's why we sent Dr. Augustine; and after she got on-planet, reports of attacks on avatars dropped off." He paused. "By the way, since she's not here to offer her take on all this, what can you tell us of her interactions with the Na'vi right before the surprise attack?"

Parker stumbled, but before he could say anything, Chairman Savage interrupted. "Abe, you'll need to debrief with Parker later. Right now, we need to figure out how to spin this thing. The world knows no more Pandorium is coming…"

"Pandorium?" Parker asked.

"People have adopted that for 'unobtanium,' which is now, so I'm told, some newly discovered heavy metal produced by hypergiant stars – or something. Not important. We have to stop people from panicking, namely our shareholders. Since you were there, what's your suggestion, Parker?"

He paused to gather his thoughts. "Let's – Let's tell them that we're sending the biggest armada in history to secure our mines. That should calm them down."

The reaction around the table was mixed, and Chairman Savage looked particularly underwhelmed. One of the suits spoke up, "We can't declare war on the Na'vi. People love them."

"They also love having their lights on," another said.

Yet another suit spoke up. "We have our synthetic labs producing Pandorium at not insignificant volumes," she said. "They can't replace the shipments from Pandora, but they'll prevent a total economic collapse. That should count for something."

"Woah, wait," Parker said. "We're producing unobtanium here?"

"We were able to synthesize it a little over three years ago," the executive said, "but it's almost as expensive to do as mining and shipping it from Pandora. We meant for it to be a supplement to the shipments, not the primary means of production."

"Let's start with that," the chairman said. "The Pandorium supply has been interrupted, but not cut off. We can deal with the Pandora base itself later." He turned to the suit who had spoken against the armada. "David, set up a press conference for tomorrow morning. It will be you, me, and Parker."

"Yes sir."

"Work with Abe, too, after he's debriefed with Parker." Chairman Savage stood up, "As for the rest of you: I know we've been doing this for a year, now, but I want a full assessment of the impact the Pandorium cutback will have on your departments, on all our field operations, and I want to know what it's going to take to get back to full operations." A chorus of acknowledgements sounded as the chairman left the room. The suits followed close behind him.

Parker was about to leave, but he was blocked by Abe. "My office is one floor down. Be there in thirty minutes. I'll tell security you're on the way."

"You know, I'm not the bad guy, here," Parker said. "My job was to get and secure unobtanium, and I did my job."

Abe chuckled. "You're covering your ass already, and I haven't even begun my interview. What does that say?" Parker wanted to punch him, but Abe turned and walked out. "See you in thirty," he said over his shoulder.

Parker stood alone in the boardroom when a thought occurred to him: He had just come back to Earth after a decade, and nobody had yet welcomed him home.

* * *

Abe watched the press conference on the screen in his office. Every news network he could name, and many he could not, were represented in the RDA press room. Tens of millions of people had to be watching from around the world. It would most certainly be replayed, in its entirety, again and again by millions more on the Internet.

Parker had finally broken down in the debrief and admitted the circumstances of RDA's exile. A rogue avatar driver, a psychotic security chief, and, yes, a massive aerial attack by "dragons." When he presented the report of his debrief to Chairman Savage, the chairman said, "I'd think you were kidding if I didn't know you were always so goddamned serious."

Abe, Parker, Chairman Savage, and David had worked long into the night carefully crafting the chairman's statement to mitigate any possibility of panic. They intended to keep it short to leave as much room for amending it in follow up releases if they had to. Of course they had no intention of saying that the Na'vi had kicked humanity off of Pandora – confidence in the company would collapse, and they would most assuredly lose their off-world mining monopoly – but would their story hold up?

They wanted to avoid a question and answer session with the press, especially after Parker's breakdown, but the demand was so high that they eventually had to concede. Even though RDA had done its best to win over the media and get few hard questions, the possibilities for rogue reporters made Abe nervous.

In addition to the broadcast monitor, Abe had pulled up financial market channels, popular Internet sites, and internal computer terminal monitoring data to gauge the real-time response to the conference.

Precisely at nine-o-clock Pacific, the world watched Chairman Savage take the podium, with David and Parker standing on the stage behind him. It was like an address by the President of the United States – who without question was one of those tuned in.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. One year ago, the Resources Development Administration had the displeasure of announcing that tragedy had befallen our colony on Pandora. The events transpired too quickly to understand the nature or extent of what happened, immortalized by the now infamous transmission: 'Evacuation underway. No more shipments. Total loss.'"

Abe sighed. They were compelled to release Parker's transmission after RDA's techies detected a hacker had successfully infiltrated their systems and may well have intercepted the message. Abe was sure it was the agent of a competing corporation – even RDA had its own illicit cyber "security" division. Without RDA's disclosure, that entity would likely have anonymously posted the transmission to the Internet. As it was, by going public first, no corporation would have risked exposing their illegal hacking activities by admitting advanced knowledge of the announcement. But he had to give it to Parker: The short, ambiguous message had given RDA a lot of breathing room.

"Yesterday, we welcomed home Parker Selfridge, our chief administrator on Pandora, and the survivors of the Pandora colony. They have provided us the details we have so desperately been seeking. A rapid, cascading failure of Pandora's refinery resulted in a compromise of the colony's life support systems."

RDA's stock dropped two percent. Its competitors' stocks rose a combined average five percent.

"RDA's security personnel coordinated the evacuation of our personnel, but tragically, many of them were unable to escape before the refinery disaster overcame them, and the other facilities on the planet. Among those we lost are Colonel Michael Quaritch, an American hero and Pandora's Chief of Security, who, true to his selfless dedication to his service, insisted on being the last one to evacuate, and the esteemed Doctor Grace Augustine, our Chief Scientific Advisor, who was attempting to secure as much of her research as possible to benefit all of humanity. RDA mourns them, and the loss of many of our family on Pandora."

The internal traffic held steady, while livebloggers were already questioning the story.

"We know the interruption of Pandorium shipments has had many question the future and vitality on our world economy. Let me assure you now, as I have assured the Interplanetary Commerce Administration and numerous heads of state, that RDA can and will guarantee the supply of Pandorium necessary to sustain the world's economy."

RDA's stock leveled off, its competitors' continued to rise.

"Three years ago, we announced that we had successfully synthesized Pandorium here on Earth. We have continued to refine our methods to increase our output and improve our quantity. We have the reserves necessary to sustain current Pandorium consumption levels while we assess the best course in returning to Pandora. And make no mistake about it; we will return."

RDA's stock ticked up, but was still down. Its competitors' leveled off. The livebloggers shifted away from the story to the adequacy of RDA's Pandorium reserves.

"I am happy to take your questions, although we can't take many today. Mr. Selfridge and our press secretary, David Lieberman, will also be available to take your questions."

The bombardment was immediate and furious, and Chairman Savage picked at random.

"What was the cause and extent of the refinery accident?" a reporter asked.

"Like I said, the accident consumed the entire colony. As for the cause, I think Mr. Selfridge can explain it better than I can."

Parker stepped up to the podium, and Abe's heart began to beat as fast as he assumed Parker's was. "We obviously didn't have time to really investigate the source," he says, "but we had an overload in one of our power reactors. Shortly after we shut it down to investigate the cause of the overload, there was an alert that the refinery was having trouble expelling excess gases; and before we could take care of that, we got a fire alert. The fire spread faster than we could contain it, and when it disrupted the power grid, that triggered an automatic, emergency shutdown, which compromised the life support systems across the complex."

"What caused the overload?" the reporter pressed.

"Again, the fire didn't really give us time to investigate."

There was another round of shouting, and again the chairman's selection was random. "What is RDA going to do for the victims' families?"

Chairman Savage's response was quick, "We will compensate them."

Another reason for why Abe was insistent that RDA keep the Na'vi attack under wraps: The compensation to the families for an industrial accident would be much, much less than for deliberately deploying their loved ones into a warzone with orders to fight. The class action suit for that would cripple the company.

The chairman chose another reporter. "Mr. Selfridge, how did you survive?"

"Once our life support functions were compromised, Colonel Quaritch insisted that I get off world and monitor the situation from the _Venture Star_, which was still in orbit and had open communications."

Another round of questions. "Chairman Savage, can you elaborate on your discussions with the ICA and governments about the world's Pandorium supply?"

"Without getting into too much detail, people can be confident that they will not experience interruptions in their day-to-day lives. Clearly some expansion projects are going to have to be put on hold, and some growth forecasts may have to be revised downwards; but we are not on the brink of some kind of economic catastrophe. Far from it."

He smiled and continued, "I'm sure some of RDA's competitors will be quick to point out after this conference that they, too, are synthesizing Pandorium for world economies to use. Let me preempt them and emphasize that the quality of RDA's Pandorium is far beyond anything they can market." He got a few chuckles from the audience.

"One more question," the chairman insisted.

"Have you considered sabotage?" the last reporter asked.

"No," Chairman Savage responded. "Thank you all for coming…"

"It's just that," the reporter interrupted, "we've had reports from several former employees posted to Pandora that relations between RDA and the Na'vi were deteriorating. Could they have sabotaged the power plant to force you off the planet?"

"To start with, I'm not going to dignify the reports of a few disgruntled employees," the chairman said. "Yes, there were some incidents with the Na'vi, but those were cultural misunderstandings. Frankly, I think we've been very forthcoming about those. But from the efforts of Doctor Augustine – and with my explicit orders, by the way – her efforts to improve our cultural relations were successful. Parker, anything to add?"

Abe held his breath. Parker had been more than candid about his opinions of Doctor Augustine and the Na'vi in their meeting.

"Yeah, I'd just say what Chairman Savage just said. Sometimes things were rocky with the Na'vi, but Doctor Augustine really did a lot of bridge building. Also, you know, they're ten feet tall and not very familiar with our technology, so the idea that one of them could sneak in to our refinery and blow it up is," he chuckled, " I don't know what you'd have to be smoking to believe that." The reporters, except the would-be inquisitor, laughed.

"Again, thank you all for coming."

Abe watched the post-conference news coverage and his information feeds for hours after the conference. By the end of the day, RDA's stock ended down, but had not cratered; and the public's chatter was focused on the specifics of how a Pandorium refinery could fail, not whether or not it had. Although there were naysayers, the public at large seemed ready to dismiss them off hand as either conspiracy theorists or knee jerk, corporation-hating, environmentalist radicals.

From the internal chatter, Abe did not see any evidence that a lower employee knew too much and was ready to go public. There was dissent, to be sure, but nothing to raise a red flag.

As he packed up to go home, however, he was summoned to Chairman Savage's office-turned-penthouse.

"Have a seat, Abe," the chairman said as he indicated a couch in the penthouse's foyer. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thank you," he said as he took a seat. "Krysta would be upset if I showed up after two nights out without an appetite."

"Fair enough." Chairman Savage took a seat opposite him. "I think we did okay today. Nobody's panicking, Parker kept his cool, and we only have a handful of lawmakers calling for an investigation."

"They won't prod too deeply. Even if they try, we can keep the worst of it from them."

"If the press doesn't know what questions to ask, the bureaucrats sure as hell don't." The chairman shook his head as he leaned back. "A marine going native and leading a revolution. Absolutely ridiculous. How would we have prepared for that?"

"Avatar drivers get much more thorough psychological screening during the training. Sully's brother checked out fine. We might have detected disloyalty in Jake if we hadn't shipped him out so fast."

"Hubris," the chairman said. "Hubris in expecting that a Jarhead is going to act like a Jarhead and not some moral crusader."

"Yes sir."

"How do we get back there?" The chairman sneered, "Should we send Parker's armada?"

Abe laughed. "Send an army to clean up an industrial accident? Like that won't raise eyebrows. Even if people hated the Na'vi, and even if we were unduly attacked, we're already on notice by the ICA for all the military hardware we shipped to Pandora in the first place; and after they rewrote the treaty to classify heavy fleets as weapons of mass destruction, an armada's just not going to happen. Not that we could recruit an army anyway."

The chairman looked puzzled. "What do you mean? Pay a man enough…"

"We lost eighty percent of our security personnel," he interrupted. "The NDAs the employees signed will probably hold up for the civilians, but I guarantee you that one of the grunts is going to hit the bars with his old war buddies, get shitfaced and spill the beans." He shook his head. "It may not make it to the public, but it's going to kill mercenary recruiting."

"Well, we can't go back there with a light force. The Na'vi will eat them alive."

"That's also true."

The chairman was silent for a few moments. "I want you in charge of our return to Pandora, and I want it to be your only priority. Delegate the rest of your work out to your team, but I want something to review in a week."

Abe's job and his extensive poker experience had taught him how to hide his emotional tells, but he was less than happy with this assignment. However, there was only one answer when given a directive by the chairman, "Yes sir."

* * *

Abe pulled into his driveway later than he would have liked, but the fact that it was the first time he had been home in two nights gave him enough comfort. He walked in the door and was very quickly greeted by his wife, Krysta. "Hey there, Stranger."

"'Hey there' to you, too," he said with a smile before kissing her. "Have a good three days?"

"Yeah, they were fantastic," she said with a smile, but not the most convincing tone. "I hope you don't mind Chinese food," she continued as she walked towards the kitchen. "Natalie's hospital visit ran long, and I didn't have the time to get to the store."

Their daughter was diagnosed with a central nervous system rhabdoid tumor when she was three years old. Although the cancer had been genetically mapped decades earlier, and although he and Krysta had invested in extensive, pre-natal genetic care to mitigate the effects of diseases – laws on the books for over a century prohibited embryonic genetic engineering to eliminate potential diseases, not that they could have diagnosed the tumor so early – the prognosis was "poor" at worst and "okay" at best. When Natalie celebrated her ninth birthday a month earlier, Abe, Krysta and their doctors considered it a miracle.

Were it not for Abe's salary, Natalie would have died years ago.

"That's fine," he said as he shed his suit jacket and untucked his shirt, following her to the kitchen. "Truth be told, I'm too tired to last through a full meal anyway." He stopped by the refrigerator to grab a beer, then rummaged through the carryout. "You should let me hire a maid or someone to help you out," he said.

"No," his wife insisted. "I am not going to become one of those senior executives' wives who's too helpless to do anything."

"And we both know how those senior executives can be," he said after he took a swig of his beer. She shot him a wry grin. Krista was his boss in AMIS when they began dating. She quit after becoming pregnant with their daughter, but always maintained the pace of a full-time executive – or, as her figure might suggest to an unknowing observer, an athlete in constant training.

"Has Natalie eaten?"

"She was pretty worn down. I took her by Maggie's Ice Cream afterwards, like we always do, but she couldn't eat; so I put her to bed about two hours ago. We have soup if she wakes up hungry."

They didn't say anything else until they had put together their respective plates of food and were seated comfortably in the entertainment room, although they left the electronics off for tonight. "All anybody could talk about at the hospital today was the press conference," she finally said. "I take it that's why you were out these last couple of nights."

"You've got it," he said. "Sorry I didn't call home more."

She put up a hand, "Hey, I remember how it was."

He smiled. "I recall the reason you didn't call home more often wasn't the work as much as because you had some young employee keep bothering you in your office."

"Oh, I don't remember it as a bother," she said with a knowing smile. If he weren't so tired, he'd capitalize on that smile and press forward; but he was sure she was not in the mood, either. His suspicions were confirmed when she got back on the original subject. "So do you want to tell me what really happened on Pandora?"

He popped a fried dumpling in his mouth. "Didn't you watch the conference? Industrial accident. The refinery blew up."

"Bullshit," she said. "Everybody else may be buying it, but don't think I'm too much out of practice not to know bullshit when it's put out there."

He took a sip of beer. "You know what we need to go with this dinner?"

"More beer?"

He laughed. "No – well, in a second – but I was thinking some music."

"Abe, don't wake Natalie," she said.

"I won't." Abe was never sure that one of his counterparts in a competing corporation hadn't bugged his home. He had authorized surveillance on others enough times to know it was a possibility; and for something as high profile as RDA's predicament, he know rivals would be desperate for information. Despite the precautions he took to keep his home bug-free, he could never be sure he was totally successful.

True to his word, he kept the volume and genre as inoffensive to Natalie's sleep as he could manage, and then he sat close to Krysta and gave her a summary of Parker's debriefing.

She almost dropped her plate. "Jesus," she said weakly. "Jesus Christ."

"Yeah."

Except for the music, they ate in silence for the remainder of the meal. It wasn't until they were getting ready for bed that they picked up the conversation. "Did you get a plumber for the bathroom?" he asked.

Krysta, who had most certainly authorized the same surveillance operations that he was so worried about, picked up on his coded phrase. "No, I was going to call today, but I lost track of time," she said from their bed. He nodded his acknowledgement, and she let her thoughts fly. "The industrial accident story is bullshit, but I can't imagine what people would do if they knew. A war? And we lost it?"

He turned off the lights and slipped into bed. "Yeah, all thanks to some xenophile Jarhead. Not that Quaritch wasn't certifiable."

"Natalie loves the Na'vi. She may not understand all of it, but 'Daddy's company killed the Na'vi,' would be enough."

He sighed, "'Daddy's company cause humanity to collapse,' would be worse, but God knows Parker fucked up."

She looked at him. "What's the Savage doing to do about it?" Chairman Savage, for all of the enlightenment of the twenty-second century workplace, did not make advancement for female executives easy, a fact which Krysta encountered repeatedly in her time at AMIS. She had been there for twelve years and only made it to vice director; but Abe made Chief in eleven, getting promoted after Krysta's successor left.

"He wants to go back, of course."

"He's not going to send Parker, is he?"

"I don't know who I'm going to send," Abe said. He caught himself and looked at her and tried to correct himself. "Who he'll send."

She smiled, "He put you in charge of fixing this mess, didn't he?"

"Dammit." He sighed, "I'm the only person outside of the Board in RDA with access to the information to put a plan together, and we all know how hands-on they like to be."

She offered a chuckle then said, "Good luck." She continued with melodramatic inflection, "The fate of the world rests on your shoulders."


	3. Assessment, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

When Jake was adopted by the Omaticaya, he felt overwhelmed. In his opinion, the Na'vi language and rituals were far too complicated, and their intricacies were impossible to learn. By the time he was ready to commit his life to the Na'vi, he thought he had most of the culture figured out. When he was born again, he let himself believe that he was about to embark on a simpler life.

Maybe that would have been true if he had been born as another warrior, but as the _olo'eyktan_, he felt as though the pendulum had swung back to complexity.

The search for a new home had taken much longer than he had imagined. Even with assistance from Norm and the Hell's Gate colonists utilizing RDA's lingering orbital surveillance network, the surviving Omaticaya spent two years in the jungle, navigating other clans' territories – some friendly, some hostile – until they found a _kelutral_ that they could cultivate into a home. It would be centuries before it grew to the size and strength of their old Hometree, but their new home accommodated the Omaticaya clan comfortably.

It took the better part of another year before hunting and foraging parties felt comfortable navigating their new home's terrain. More than a few hunters had learned about the forest's predators' preferred ambush points the hard way.

Jake also had to deal with the discontent among many of the clan that their new home was much father away from the _Iknimaya_ than their former home. Young warriors undergoing their rites of passage faced a longer, more dangerous trek through the jungle. On this problem, however, Jake was ahead of the curve. He would recall the words of his Parris Island drill instructor to any hesitant recruit: "You don't have to do it if you want to be a failure."

Despite the risks they faced, so far no young warriors had perished under his leadership.

Even though most of his responsibilities were now becoming routine, there rarely seemed to be an occasion where he was not required to become involved. Most of the clan's experienced warriors, to whom Eytukan might have delegated some leadership responsibilities during his reign, were killed in the war with the RDA. Jake was doing his best to cultivate leadership among the younger warriors, but many were still reluctant to accept that they were subordinates of a _tawtute_, no matter how long ago he had abandoned his humanity.

That was where Neytiri had the greatest impact as the clan's matriarch. For all the affection she showed to her people, she could be – and often was – as tough as the fibers woven into the Na'vi skeletons when it came to disciplining wayward warriors. If there was a lack of respect for Jake among some of the people, there was never a shortage for Neytiri.

But where she showed sternness to others, she had an immeasurable calming effect on him. Whenever he felt his worst, she would be there to raise his spirits. She also remained a patient teacher, accepting his occasional stumbles and displays of ignorance. "You cannot gain the knowledge of a lifetime in a single night," she would often say.

He would sometimes retort with the words Mo'at spoke when he was adopted, "Maybe my cup's just too full."

Without any problems or looming threats requiring his immediate attention, he and Neytiri had found occasion to take leave from the Hometree to one of the jungle's many secluded areas. She did her utmost to take Jake's mind away from the troubles facing the clan, and he welcomed her efforts.

She lay on his chest as their _tsahaylu_ dissipated and their queues disconnected. She placed a hand on his cheek and looked up at him. "I could feel your anxiety," she said. "We are out here to be at ease, to leave the worries of the clan for one night."

He placed his hand over hers. "It wasn't the clan I was worried about."

Her brow furrowed for a moment, but then he could see the realization in her eyes. "Our child."

"Our lack of a child." Despite the many trials he had passed in becoming the clan's leader, and in the time since, he knew the one thing that was undermining his authority among the Na'vi was his and Neytiri's lack of children – not due to any lack of effort on their part. The Na'vi, whether in hunting, battle, or aspiring to leadership, were nothing if not patient; and he knew some warriors felt that they could wait out his bloodline.

Neytiri raised herself off his chest, resting her arms to either side of him, and looked him in the eyes. "We have talked about this, Jake. Eywa would not have blessed our mating if you could not sire children. You must trust yourself. We cannot conceive a child in doubt."

He sighed. "I know. But my body still carries human blood. What if it's too much?"

She rested her brow on his. "I trust in Eywa, and I trust in you. You should do the same." He could not respond right away, not that it mattered as she kissed him.

He embraced Neytiri, wrapping his arms about her and guiding her onto her back. In this time, he thought of a response. He gave her a wry grin and then whispered into her ear, "You're saying I need to try harder?"

Jake could not see her smile, but he felt her brush her leg along the length of his at the same time she sighed. The turn of phrase may not have translated exactly into Na'vi, but her understanding of English was good enough to understand the message. "Yes, Jake," she urged. "Try harder."

* * *

Norm knew he and the others were fighting a losing battle. Five years after humanity's presence on Pandora was effectively reduced to nothing, the jungle had made extensive inroads to reclaiming Hell's Gate. First the moss overran every exposed surface on the outpost that the humans were not able to protect, and not long afterwards the tall grasses took root in the soil formed by the moss' decomposition. As Norm walked along the base's fence, he saw through his oxygen mask that more complex plants taking root around the perimeter. Outside the fence, the "no man's land" that the base's former caretakers had so carefully kept barren was even further reclaimed.

The handful of humans simply could not contain the vegetation encroaching along the seven-mile perimeter. And as the brush became thicker, Norm knew the animals would not be far behind; and it would not be long before they found the weaknesses in the fencing and overran the complex.

They had been so focused on keeping the critical machinery up running to support the habitation module – power generators, pressurizers, oxygenators, and the stereolithography plant – that they had let most of the heavy lifting vehicles succumb to corrosion. Without those, they would be unable to stop the jungles of Pandora from overwhelming the base.

Knowing this, Norm put out a distress call earlier in the morning. Ever since the base's air defenses went silent, it was not uncommon to see banshees flying overhead; but one in particular descended quickly, and soon Norm could make out the Na'vi warrior riding on its back.

Jake and his banshee landed a few yards in front of Norm, and whether by instinct or for dramatic effect, the banshee let out a shriek at him as Jake dismounted. "_Kaltxì_, Norm," Jake said with a smile.

Norm looked up at his ten-foot tall friend and said, "Hello to you too, Jake. It's been a while."

"Yeah, it has. How is everyone?"

"None of us have been eaten by thanators, yet, so I guess we're doing okay," he said with a laugh. "How is the tribe doing?"

"I think we've settled in," he said, crossing his arms. "We're taking it day by day right now."

"And Neytiri?"

Jake's smile was wide. "She's good," he said, "and she sends her best."Before Norm could ask his follow up question, Jake looked around and continued, "I can see why you called. You're almost in the jungle."

"It's close for comfort without an avatar to walk around," he said. "What we want to do is reduce the perimeter to make clearing the brush more manageable. We'd pull in the fences to cut off the refinery and airfield – we're just using them for scrap metal for fabricating parts. Then we'd build a second enclosure around the research labs to protect the crops, and we'd connect the two with a pressurized walkway."

Jake nodded along as he described the plan. "And you don't have the equipment to do this on your own?"

"Not if we can repair it, and I think we can," Norm said. "It's manpower we lack. It's all we can do to just keep up with basic repairs."

Jake paused and shook his head. "It would take some convincing to send some of my warriors to help you. They agreed to let you stay, but…"

"But it was as much as 'Rot in Hell' as 'You're welcome here.' Yeah, we got it." There was silence between the two as they reflected on the realities of the humans' circumstances. For all the technology that was left behind in RDA's exile, life on Pandora was becoming, and would continue to become, ever more hostile to the humans. Norm continued, "We don't need an army, just a handful to help with some of the heavy lifting. The avatar training enclosure has held up well and can house them while they're here."

Jake's expression was stoic as he considered Norm's request, but his tail reminded Norm of that of an apprehensive cat. After some time, he sighed and said, "I'll do what I can. I won't lie, though. If I send any of my people over, it will because they're in hot water; so they won't be especially happy to be here.

Norm chuckled, "Like an old fashioned chain gang?"

"Yeah," Jake said with a laugh. "Yeah, something like that. In the Corps we called it EPD." He paused. "You know I'm doing this for you as a friend, Norm, but the people won't be satisfied unless you've got something to offer in return."

He nodded. "I know, and I think we have something to barter with." He called into his communicator, "Hey, Max, can you bring one of the pallets out here?"

Max soon emerged from the habmod's airlock with a motorized hand cart, carting a long pallet stacked with weapons lockers. "How are you doing, Jake?" he called out once he was outside.

"Doing fine, Max. It's good to see you again."

Norm walked over to one of the lockers and released the latches. He opened the lid to reveal several heavy machine gun. "We've been using some of the left over scrap from the refinery to make these."

Jake walked over and picked up one of the weapons. Even though Jake had lived with this weaponry in his past life, his inspection now gave the impression that he was only distantly familiar with it. "Been a while?" Norm asked.

"It comes back quickly," Jake replied without looking away from the gun. "How much time is on the clock?"

After RDA evacuated Pandora, Norm and the others established a clock to countdown to the soonest possible time that an armada could come looking for revenge. "Five years, two months, and change. The _Venture Star_ hasn't gotten back to the solar system, yet; but if Parker managed to get a distress call out before he left, that message would most definitely have gotten there by now. If you add six months from the time Earth got the message for RDA to build and recruit a new army, which I personally think is giving them a lot of time, those ships should be on their way by now."

"And you know he told them something," Jake said solemnly. He put the gun back in its locker. "I think they'll accept these. We won't take them now – we're sure as Hell not going to take them hunting – but as soon as you get a signal from RDA, we'll come get them."

Norm nodded. "That sounds like a plan."

"It's the start of a plan, anyway," Jake replied. "Here's hoping your clock is fast."

* * *

Abe entered into the closing summary of his report. "We can't send an armada not only because of the investigations that would invite, and because most of our military assets are committed under Defense contracts, but because there is no logistical support on Pandora to sustain an army over what would likely be a protracted guerilla campaign.

"We also have to assume that the rogue band of former employees is using their knowledge of RDA and the surviving facilities to provide material support to the Na'vi to build their defenses. And even if all of that could be easily overcome, we simply don't have enough Pandorium to launch our full fleet at maximum speed to deliver all of our resources to Pandora in a reasonable timeframe. The longer we wait to develop those resources, the longer they have to prepare for us.

"We have to go back to Pandora, and they know we're coming. So what we have to do is break up their unified front. The plan, in brief, is to do that with a small, specialized advance team that will attempt to drive as many wedges between the identified factions as possible so that when we do arrive to resume mining operations, any resistance we meet is substantially reduced."

Abe shut down the holoprojector at the center of the boardroom's roundtable. "The only problem that remains is communications. Given the narrow window between the advance team's arrival and the reinforcement fleet's arrival, sending beamed updates back to Earth and to the fleet makes for lousy lead-time if it all goes wrong." Abe looked over at the director of RDA's research division, "But I'm told you may have some insights on that, Tom."

Thomas Walsh, an old, plump man who was one hundred years behind the fashion curve and had a demeanor that unreservedly announced to everyone in whatever room he shared that he was the smartest man at the table, nodded. "Most of you know that the last few years have seen us make a number of breakthroughs in Morris-Thorne theory." He paused to look around the table of confused faces. "Wormholes." He got some nods, rolled his eyes, and continued. "Our development of antimatter drives opened up ways to test some of the principles laid out well over one-hundred fifty years ago, and we have finally begun to solve some of the stability issues presented in the early science."

"And that means what?" Chairman Savage asked.

"It means that we are able to open up wormholes big enough and with the stability to transfer photons instantaneously out to about ten-thousand astronomical units."

Abe shook his head. "That's not even a light year, Tom."

"No," he admitted, "but if you consider that just one year ago we could only open a temporary, largely unstable wormhole out to two-hundred astronomical units, I think you can appreciate the rate at which we are advancing in the science. If we have another fifty-fold improvement by next year, then we will exceed the distance to Alpha Centauri. Once we achieve that distance, we can focus on issues of magnitude and stability."

"Are you saying we could just teleport our fleet to Pandora?" the chairman asked.

Tom laughed. "Lord no! The power needed to do something like that is far beyond our technical capabilities. I'll go out on a limb and say it will be beyond our grandchildren's capabilities. But what we may be able to do is open up – at least for short periods of time – stable and large enough wormholes to allow for real-time, two-way communications."

"How long will it take you to deploy that technology?" Abe asked.

Tom suddenly looked unhappy. "Well," he said with a sigh, "there are still more than a few technological hurdles to overcome. But given the rate at which we're improving our methods and understanding the properties of wormholes, we might be able to achieve this in three or four years' time – while your team is en route to Pandora." Tom held up his hands, "Granted, that's based on our current progress. I can't anticipate setbacks."

"Would you be able to relay our messages to the reinforcement fleet in real time?"

Tom shook his head. "No. Right now we can only create wormholes out to a fixed point in space. A ship operating with a full power antimatter drive would pass through the communications window faster than it could receive a meaningful message. Right now they can decode our light-based messages because they can account for the Doppler effect when the light catches up to them. We don't have any way to do the same thing for communications through wormholes – which, let me emphasize, is still theoretical at this point."

Abe nodded. "Well, it's worth the effort to try and at least open up a line to Pandora." Tom nodded in agreement. Abe looked around the table and asked, "Are there any questions?"

Chairman Savage tapped his fingers on the table. "What are we looking at if this fails?"

He took in a deep breath. "Bad things. Our reinforcement fleet will show up to a unified Na'vi defense, they will likely be repelled, and we won't have enough Pandorium to send a third wave in for another fifteen years at our current synthesizing rates. Our failure to provide Pandorium to Earth will likely result in the ICA stripping us of our exclusive mining rights, and the effects of that would be devastating."

The room fell silent as the RDA's leadership considered what they were facing. The chairman nodded after a while, then looked over to David. "How would you spin this mission publically? We won't be able to hide the fact that our first interstellar launch since the 'accident' is not one of our ISVs."

David shrugged. "We'll say that we're sending an advance team of engineering experts to assess the damage to the colony, give them time to develop the fastest possible recovery, and our next launch is our best guess at the supplies and personnel that they will need to get things up and running."

The chairman nodded. "We can work with that. Abe, you've done good work. I'm giving you the green light to put it in motion."

"Thank you, sir."

"You said it will take three months?"

"Based on my initial review of the resources available, yes. Some aspects are more critical than others, and I won't launch until they're ready…"

Chairman Savage pointed his finger indiscriminately around the table, "These folks are going to make sure you keep on schedule. The top priority of this organization is our return to Pandora, and whatever you have going on takes a backseat to what Abe needs. Am I clear?"

A chorus of acknowledgements responded.

"Good. Abe, I want weekly updates from you on your progress. However, I'll clear my schedule if you need to alert me to any problems."

"Not a problem, sir."

"And for your first update, I want a list of the crew you're taking with you."

Abe did not respond right away. He thought he misheard the chairman. "That I'm taking with me where?"

The chairman chuckled and said, "To Pandora, of course."

For the first time in his career, Abe allowed himself a nervous laugh. "Sir, I'm not going to Pandora."

"Then who's going to see this plan through?"

Abe was stunned by the suggestion. "Sir, I'm already reviewing the records of our most outstanding field administrators…"

Chairman Savage leaned forward and spoke with unwavering seriousness, "The last outstanding field administrator we sent to Pandora to implement a foolproof plan was Parker Selfridge. Do you want to send another Parker up there?"

"As hard as it is for me to say this, but in Parker's defense—" indeed, he had to swallow first, "there were a lot of unknowns in our first go at Pandora."

"Who says there aren't a lot of unknowns in our second go? You've put together a solid plan, I'm not saying that. But it is based on our imperfect understanding of what's going on up there, don't you agree?"

"Sir, with all due respect, I'm not cleared One-A for interstellar flight. My security clearance, my duties here, and my family all preclude me from a mission to Pandora." Well before RDA dominated the art of spacefaring, governments and corporations conducted extensive psychological studies on people during long-distance space travel. At the cost of several of these pioneers being crippled by various dementias, the medical community developed a list of risk factors for would-be spacefarers. Applicable to Abe, being a married and the father of an ill child were top-level disqualifying conditions.

The chairman, however, was dismissive of that list. "We will make sure your family is well taken care of, same as we do for everyone we send off world."

"I'm sure, but Natalie—" he slipped and was overcome by thoughts of his family. Abe had to pause to swallow the lump building in his throat, then tried to steer the discussion away from his daughter. He reiterated, "I don't have any experience in field ops."

"Abe, how many screwed up field operations have you investigated since you joined AMIS?" Chairman Savage did not give him time to respond. "In all of those investigations, I would hope you've learned a few things about what makes a good field operation and what doesn't. In fact, I'll hazard to guess you have more experience than any of our field officers when it comes to what doesn't make a good operation than what does. After all, when they screw up to the point that you get involved, they don't get the chance to screw up again, am I right?"

Abe was getting ready to make another petition against personally leading the mission, but once again the chairman did not give him the chance. His voice was stern, "I'll say it again: We've sent the best of the best from the field before, and we're here because of that decision. You're a man I can trust up there. I also trust that you can put together a team of top-notch operatives to see your plan through."

He didn't like the idea, but the best he could do was shake his head. The chairman pressed on, "You talked about improving our margins by diversifying our Pandora operations: expanding pharmaceutical research and environmental reclamation on Earth, right?"

"That's right. Doctor Augustine's samples that made it back to Earth indicated a great potential for medical advances through some of the compounds identified…"

"Like, say, finding a cure for some of the more malignant cancers still around."

Abe looked Chairman Savage square in the eye. He knew where the chairman was going with that next; and the chairman knew Abe caught on, so he left it unsaid. "You wouldn't want some Parker Selfridge in charge of something that important, would you?"

He took more time than he ought to have to respond. "I get to choose the team – my team – and my choices are final."

Chairman Savage sat back in his chair and held up his hands. "I just want to know who's going."

"One week?"

"One week."

* * *

To be continued…


	4. Assessment, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Parker's footfalls echoed off the walls of the RDA Compound's most clandestine floor. Excepting those who worked in this division, few employees of RDA ever wanted to come to this place. Whereas most of the floors which housed RDA's department leaders were ornately decorated, the hallway housing the Asset Management and Information Security division were barren, black marble, lit merely with lighting strips along the floor and ceiling. Opposite of the elevator bay sat a lone security guard at a stainless steel desk, and behind him a tinted glass door that concealed the offices at the heart of AMIS' worldwide operations.

Many corporate offices – and even government offices – used mid-budget security contractors, but the guard on post at this floor was a veteran of RDA's in-house security force, and he was not riding a desk because of incompetence. Parker guessed that just a few weeks ago, the security guard was engaged in close-quarters combat against terrorists under a Defense Department contract; and he would very likely be deployed in the same capacity a few weeks from now. Protocol mandated that security personnel spend one month on vacation and three months serving in a "low hazard" post for every year of field deployment in order to avoid burning them out. It was one of the draws for security forces on Pandora: Their interstellar travel counted with their on-world tour of duty as time served. Many of them expected when they came home to get a year of paid vacation and three years of cushy, high-paying desk work.

Four out of five of them were dead, now.

Parker knew that the guard was reading him for any sign of hostility just to have an excuse to use his weapon in between deployments. He was direct, and his voice was stern. "Your name, sir?"

"Parker Selfridge. I have an…"

"May I see your ID, sir?"

Parker barely had his badge out of his wallet when the guard snatched it out of his hand. The guard said as he turned the badge at a variety of angles to ensure each security feature was present. Satisfied, he returned the badge, but not without admonishing him. "You are supposed to _wear_ your badge at all times, Mister Selfridge, not keep it in your pocket."

He clipped the badge to his belt. "Thank you…" Parker checked the guard's nametag "…Mister Talbott."

"_Sergeant_ Talbott, sir."

"Sorry."

The sergeant scanned his display screen. "Name of your appointment, Mister Selfridge?"

"Abe Scheller, at seven-o-clock."

The door behind the desk opened, and Abe was standing there. "You're late," he said while holding the door open. Parker assumed Sergeant Talbott might have said the same thing. Abe looked at the guard, frowned, and said, "And so is your relief, Dick. What the hell are you still doing here?"

When Sergeant Talbott turned around, Parker half expected him to berate Abe for being so casual. Instead he just snorted and replied to him like he was an old friend. "Apparently the north-south tram broke down," he said. "Sarah called about five minutes ago, said they just got it moving again."

"Do you get overtime?" The sergeant just laughed, and Abe shook his head. He then turned his attention back to Parker. "Are you coming in?"

"Yeah," he said, and stepped through the door. Abe escorted him back to his office, passing row after row of empty cubicles. "I'm kind of surprised they don't all work as late as you do."

"I force them not to," Abe said. "If you spend too much time looking at the stuff we look at, and doing what we do, it will make you numb."

"And so, what, you're immune?"

Abe shot him a cross look. "I'm _conditioned_," he said, at the moment that they arrived at his office. "Have a seat."

Parker figured the office probably had a fantastic view of the city and surrounding landscape outside of floor-to-ceiling windows; but those windows had been covered up by layer after layer of dark materials designed to block out all imaginable types of electronic surveillance. The office was also sparsely furnished beyond the executive desk – a few chairs, a coffee table, and twin-seat sofa. Several video panels were mounted on the walls, most of them split-screened to display two news stations apiece. The others were likely in use, but whatever information they displayed Abe had not wanted him to see, as they were hidden under privacy screens.

Abe closed the door once Parker took a seat in front of his desk. However, rather than sit behind his desk, Abe pulled up a chair and sat opposite of him. "I'm sure you know that I presented my Pandora proposal to the Board and division chiefs this morning."

"I was kind of hoping to be invited," Parker said sorely, "since Pandora was kind of my job for a few years."

Abe nodded. "Like you said, it _was_ your job. Just because the public seems to be buying the industrial accident story doesn't mean that the leadership here thinks you're still golden." Parker was a breath away from laying out his own opinions of RDA's management, but Abe continued. "I've been thinking about what you said to me when you got back."

Parker paused. "What did I say?"

"That you were just doing your job," Abe replied casually. "Pandora was humanity's first extra-solar colony, and it also happened to be the first where there was a sapient species. Despite all the laws and treaties and protocols that were issued in the run-up to our settlement, we had no idea what would happen. There is no precedent for a war away from the solar system. We literally threw you into the jungle and expected you to find your way through it." Abe paused. "I don't blame you for being a little upset at becoming a scapegoat."

Although he was taken aback by the admission, he was not at a loss for words. "Thank you," he said. He snorted and said it again, "Thank you. I've been waiting for someone to say that since I got home."

Abe continued without acknowledging his comment. "Chairman Savage wants me to lead the team going back to Pandora. More to the point, he didn't want you to go back there."

Parker furrowed his brow. "Why would you tell me that?"

"Because I think he's wrong." Abe leaned back in his chair. "The chairman thinks things went wrong because you burned out, but I think you were screwed from the get-go. He's sending me because he doesn't want to make the same mistake twice, but by sending someone without any experience back up there, he is."

Parker saw where he was going and raised his hands defensively. "Look, I'm sorry you're stuck with going back to that Hellhole, but you're not passing it to me."

"I'm not asking you to lead the return trip," Abe replied without flinching the least bit at the fact that Parker had caught on. "I'm just asking you to come back."

He laughed. "Not a chance. Besides, the law says you can't force someone to take multiple deep space trips without two years of recuperation."

"There's nothing in the law to prohibit volunteering, though."

Parker crossed his arms, incredulous at the suggestion. "Why would I do that?"

"I need somebody up there who can walk me through your mistakes." He extended an open palm and said, "You're the most likely and best candidate to do that."

"You just said it wasn't my fault."

"No, I said you got the short end of the stick. You still allowed Quaritch to run rampant, and look at how that ended up. I need to know what led you to let him off his leash so I can make sure it doesn't happen again."

Parker shook his head. "I debriefed you," he said with an elevated tone. "I told you that those savages threw everything we offered them back in our faces, and they kept hunting us down. I tried to be diplomatic, and it didn't work. So I did what I had to do to keep the unobtanium coming."

Abe appeared unfazed. "But you agree that Quaritch's solution was out of line, right?"

"We were about to be annihilated."

He nodded slowly. "Yes, and then you were."

Parker sighed and shook his head again. "Look, Pandora's your problem, and you said Savage doesn't want me to go back there. So I'm not going."

Abe tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, then reached over and took a worktablet off of his desk. Most of these tablets were translucent – the contents readable, albeit in reverse, from an observer – however, the back of Abe's was red-tinted. His fingers moved quickly over the tablet, scanning through information, the contents of which Parker could only guess. "The gap in the refinery explosion story," he said after a few moments of scanning, "is that Pandorium is a fairly stable element to refine. That's why it makes such a good energy source – it's stable under manageable temperatures and pressures. It's not something that will just blow up."

"It was your brainchild of a cover-up," Parker replied. "That's your fault, not mine."

"I thought you gave a good answer to the reporter who asked about sabotage. You're just lucky he didn't ask about gross negligence."

Parker tried furiously to guess what Abe was looking at. "Okay, I guess I was. Why?"

"Pandorium may not spontaneously combust, but there are enough moving parts in a refinery that require constant maintenance, or they will go up." Abe looked up from his tablet. "Can you say for certain that you never denied a critical maintenance request because your fabrication labs were too busy manufacturing weapons?"

The silence was palpable. "You don't have proof of that," Parker finally said.

"Who knows what I'll find on the logs back at Hell's Gate? I'm sure Doctor Augustine's survivors will have taken great pains to maintain the evidence of your screw ups."

Parker exploded. "The accident was a cover up, you idiot!" he shouted. "There isn't any evidence like that, because it didn't happen!"

"So when I return from Pandora and present the evidence in support of our story, you're going to go public with the real story?" He paused before continuing. "They may believe you, and RDA will look bad for engaging in a cover up. I may even go to jail for it. Savage will probably go to jail for it. You, on the other hand, will be crucified."

He was still angry, but for entirely different reasons, now. "You know, most people don't usually tell the people they're going to set up that they're going to set them up."

"And most people don't need me to spell out for them why they ought to listen to me in the first place," Abe replied. He set the tablet back on his desk, exchanging it for a folder. He withdrew a form and handed it to Parker. "It will look better if you volunteer."

Parker took his time to look over the form. It was a release to waive RDA of its obligations to keep him grounded for two years. He thought about his options, then he asked, "Do you have a pen?"

* * *

Abe pulled into his driveway and took a fair amount of time before leaving the car. He had been working late on the proposal every night for the last week, so he did not expect Krysta to raise a fuss over him coming home at this hour – relative to the other nights, he was coming home early. However, he hadn't yet told her how his presentation before the chairman went.

He felt his heart beat faster as he approached the front door. How would she take the news? He had seen her work under pressure time and time again without getting worked up, but would that hold true tonight?

She opened the door before he could get his keys out and greeted him with a warm smile. "Hey there, Stranger."

He offered a smile back. "Hi," he said, then placed a hand on her cheek and leaned in to kiss her. She took him by his jacket lapels and pulled him into the house and closed the door behind them.

Although he was tired, he was more than willing to let this continue on and avoid breaking the news to her, but Krysta disengaged. "You have something to hide, don't you?"

"What makes you say that?"

She playfully poked him in the stomach. "You were anxious." He raised an eyebrow, eliciting a short laugh from her. "Kissing is like sex. I know when your heart – or any other part of you – isn't in it."

"Ah," he said with a slight nod.

"So, I assume it has something to do with your presentation today. Did the Savage slap it down?"

"No, he liked it," he replied as he slipped out of her grip and walked towards the kitchen. "He loved it, actually."

"Great. You've undoubtedly saved Mankind. What are you worried about?"

He pulled a beer out of the refrigerator. "Well, he had some changes."

"Of course," she replied as she joined him in the kitchen. "That's how he makes himself think it was all his idea."

Abe paused. "Is Natalie home?"

"No, she had a sleepover tonight." Her tone became more concerned. "Abe, what's wrong? What did he do?"

He downed a few sips of beer before he responded. "He liked my plan so much that he wants me to head it up." He paused for her reaction, but drove the point home when he was met with silence. "On Pandora. Chairman Savage wants me to go to Pandora."

Krysta let out a short laugh, then shook her head. "No. No, that's bullshit. You blew him off, right?"

"I brought up my disqualifying factors…"

"Abe!" she interrupted. "You looked in his fat face and told him to fuck off, right?"

He couldn't bring himself to respond. She went slackjawed.

"Uh-uh," she managed after a long silence. "No. No, Abe, you are not going to do this."

"Krysta…"

"No!" She walked out of the kitchen, but kept shouting. "You are not going to that God-forsaken planet!"

He followed after her. "You don't think I tried to get out of it? You really think I could have just said, 'Thanks, but no thanks,' and kept my job?"

"Don't make this about the money, Abe!" she snapped back. She turned to face him. "Your job is to fix things on this planet, not fly off and clean up somebody else's shit on some distant moon. In case you haven't forgotten, you have a family here!"

The anger he felt over the day's events finally boiled over. "I know that!" he yelled. "Do you think I'm happy about this? Do you think I ever conceived of going to Pandora? That I want to go?"

"It would be convenient for you though, wouldn't it?" she replied. "You spend all your time at the Compound anyway, I bet it will be real easy for you to just forget about me and Natalie after you fly off."

He slapped her.

She slapped him.

They stared at each other in tense silence for what felt like minutes until Krysta finally fell to her knees, sobbing. He went to his knees and wrapped his arms around her. She cried into his shoulder. "You can't," she would say when she could catch her breath.

It was late in the night before they could manage to talk to each other without succumbing to baser emotions. He lay on a couch in the entertainment room, and she on his chest. "She'll be twenty-two when you come home," Krysta said. "She'll have lived more of her life without you than having you here."

"They're working on some kind of real-time communication," Abe offered weakly. "I know it would be years before I would talk to her, but it would be something."

"What if she's in the hospital?" she looked up at him. "She always asks for you when she's in the hospital, and you're always there. Now you won't be."

"You tell her that I'm asking the Na'vi for their help to find a cure. It wasn't bullshit about the pharmaceuticals – or at least not all of it."

Krysta let out a short laugh. "After what Quaritch did, they'll cure you of having a head on top of your neck."

He shook his head. "I don't know how to tell her," he said, his voice full of resignation. "I try to think about it, but I can't get the words right."

"You have to," she said, almost pleaded, in response. "I can't be your cover for this. It's one thing to say, 'Oh, well, Daddy has really important work at the office tonight,' but to say, 'Oh, well, Daddy has to leave for thirteen years,' I just can't do that."

"I know," he said with a sigh. "I'm not going to tell her right away, though. I'm not leaving for three months, maybe even four or five if things go wrong. She deserves to not be worried for all of that time."

"Just don't wait until the last minute," she cautioned. "She'll never get over that." She paused. "I'll never get over that."

He brushed her hair aside and kissed her on the forehead. "I promise I won't wait until the last minute." In total defiance of his nature to insist that everything work according to detailed plans, Abe found himself praying that his departure was delayed to the furthest possible future.

* * *

First there were shouts of alarm, and then Norm turned his head to see the Na'vi scattering away from the falling section of fence. "Shit," he muttered.

Max shook his head. "Third time that's happened with this crew. Now you know they're doing it on purpose."

"I don't think they'd be too upset if a pack of viperwolves stormed through the breach right now," Norm replied. He sighed then walked over to the warriors who were treating the collapse of the fence section with little urgency.

As he approached, the implicit leader of the group of Na'vi said, "_Moel ngeyä txoa plängawm_," with all the sincerity of a child professing innocence with her hand caught with a hand in the cookie jar. She may have been asking for his forgiveness, but she couldn't care less if she got it or not.

He wanted to snap back at her, but no matter how much time he spent around the Na'vi, Norm was never completely comfortable with the idea of inviting the anger of ten-foot tall warriors; especially not when out of his avatar, which had long ago rotted away in Pandora's jungle.

Norm responded to her in their tongue, "Just pay more attention to what you're doing."

"We know what we are doing," another of the Na'vi spoke up. "We are wasting time we could be using to train ourselves, to hunt for our people, to protect you aliens. Why could you not have left with the other Sky People?"

He bit his tongue and ducked the question. "If you keep making mistakes, then you will be here 'helping' us for a longer time. Help us finish this quickly, then you can go back to your home and not worry about us anymore."

"No," the female leader said with a hiss. "We will always worry about you. Jakesully says you will bring back more warriors with more terrible weapons. We always have to worry. How nice that he makes us build this fence for you so you do not have to worry."

"If we are all eaten because a _palulukan_ breaks through our fence, then we won't be able to help you fight off the warriors," he replied.

At that moment, Norm heard the sound of a banshee land behind him, and turned to see Jake dismounting the large animal. "Are they giving you problems, Norm?" he asked as he approached.

"No," he replied. "We were just going over the plan one more time."

Jake was clearly unconvinced. He looked at his warriors and said sternly, "If I have to tell you again to take this seriously, you will not like the consequences."

"Is there another alien species you will have us mother?" one of the warriors asked and, by the way Norm saw his face drop, instantly regretted.

Jake snarled and approached the offending Na'vi, but before he could exact a punishment, Norm called out in English, "Forget it, Jake. It's not going to get this done any faster."

He paused, a mere foot away from the upstart male, then after a few moments, stepped away. "Get back to work!" he shouted, and the Na'vi immediately set about repairing the broken section.

Norm walked with him down the now-overgrown tarmac towards Max, whose expression was of total amusement. "It's good to see you've settled into your leadership role, Jake."

"Yeah, well, sometimes it needs reinforcing," he said with a sigh. He looked over his shoulder at the warriors at work. "Again, sorry I couldn't send over a more dedicated crew. But I think you can understand why their enthusiasm is low."

"We're just glad for the help – any help," Norm offered. "We've made good progress, and we may even finish ahead of schedule, despite the 'setbacks.'"

Jake looked around the base. "So when are you planning to move the gun turrets in?"

Norm and Max crossed glances, then Norm replied, "We weren't. As long as the fence does its job, we're not going to slaughter any animal that challenges it."

"I'm not thinking about the animals," Jake said.

"I know," Norm said. "We still have a good five years. We can move of the turrets once we have the basics taken care of."

Jake shook his head. "You don't want to wait until the last minute and find yourself scrambling for anti-air power when their ships come in for a landing."

Norm pondered that, but decided not to respond. Instead he indicated the warriors, "Maybe they'll move a little more quickly when they're hauling guns instead of fence parts."

Jake let out a short laugh. "Maybe you're right."

Max interrupted, "Hey, Jake, it's good to see you, but I need to check on the fabrication lab. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure thing, Max," Jake said as the doctor walked inside.

"Maybe that's not a bad idea," Norm said to Jake once Max was out of earshot. "What if you took the turrets back to the clan?"

Now Jake let out a stronger laugh, one that turned the heads of the warriors for a brief moment. "Neytiri and Mo'at have gone to great lengths to sanctify our new home. If I brought in machinery, _olo'eyktan_ or not, they'd murder me."

Norm paused. "How is Neytiri? Have you and she…"

Jake crossed his arms, "No." He sighed. "She's taking it better than I am. She says it's not unheard of for couples to have children long after they've mated, but that's not good enough for me."

Norm shrugged. "Maybe it is just a matter of time. I mean, my parents were old as dirt when they had me."

Jake raised an eyebrow. "How old were they?"

"Mom was thirty-four, Dad was thirty-five."

Jake laughed again. "All right, well, I'll be sure to tell Neytiri that, by the Spellman model, it may be another twelve years before we're successful."

"Well, keep in mind that your avatar body is only ten or eleven years old, so it may be even longer than that," Norm said with a smirk.

"Yeah, I think I'll leave that part out." They were quiet for a few moments. "I should get back. I just wanted to check up on you." He gave Norm a pat on the back that, while Jake might have perceived it as light, almost knocked him over. Seemingly unaware of that, Jake walked back to his banshee, and with the grace of a warrior who had been at it his whole life, formed the _tsahaylu_ and mounted the beast. "My communicator still works, so let me know if I need to come back and get them in line."

"Sure thing." Jake nodded and, with a running start, the banshee took off and was out of sight over the jungle canopy in seconds.

Norm stood there for minutes on end as his mind began to recall more and more images of his parents. Memories from his childhood flooded over him. Norm had been homesick a few times after first arriving on Pandora, but he hadn't experienced it in years. Now, having broached the subject of family bonds with Jake, he felt unable to escape it.

Worse, he suddenly felt alone.

He was startled out of his thoughts, however, when his vision was obstructed by the female Na'vi who had so dispassionately asked for his forgiveness. "Have you gone deaf, Sky Person?"

"Huh?"

"That part of the fence is finished, by your instructions. Are we done for the day?"

Norm looked over his shoulder and, indeed, the broken fence was mended. He approached it for a closer inspection, but seeing no obvious signs of sabotage, he nodded his head. "It's too late to start on another section, so yes. You are done for the day."

The warriors walked back towards the old avatar quarters, muttering amongst themselves. Norm shook his head. They might not be friends, but at least they were at peace.

"It has to count for something," he said to the wind. "It damn well better."


	5. Preparation

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N: I just want to give a nod to the reviews and comments you all have left. I know it's courtesy to respond in kind, but I've been busy these last few days, and will be for the foreseeable future. I just didn't want you to think I've been ignoring you.

* * *

Abe had most of his team locked in, but for one critical member. Even though he knew the qualifications for this particular role would be impossible to fill completely, he still had thought the hardest part of building the team would be to recruit the leader. After all, who would _want_ to go back to Pandora after being read in on the situation?

He had to be certain of each potential recruit before he interviewed them. Even though they would not be given the full story until they were assembled, interviewing too many candidates – especially in their narrow specialties – would risk an information breach.

Today's candidate, however, he did not expect to talk outside of his field.

His video monitor activated. "Mister Scheller? Your three-o-clock is on the line," his assistant said. "Can I patch him in?"

"Go ahead, Donna. Thank you." A moment later, the video feed of his mid-fifties female assistant just outside his office was replaced by an early-thirties male on the other side of the country. "Devon Angler?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you for calling in. I'll get right to it: I was hoping to interest you in a job."

Devon chuckled. "Thanks, but I sent an application in to RDA two years ago." He paused. "And three years ago."

"I know. That's how I became aware of you."

"Sir, I had to be transferred three times in order to get to you. Something tells me that you're not some HR person who goes through two year old resumes for a project that, if the news isn't lying, is no longer operational."

Abe smiled. "No, I'm not, but I do have hiring authority – so to speak – unless you're longer interested in employment with RDA."

Devon leaned back and crossed his arms. "I called in, didn't I?"

"Good. I just need to ask you a few questions before I read you in on the assignment." Abe flipped through a series of documents on his worktablet. "I'm looking at the last resume you sent over. You graduated _magna cum laude_ from Stanford with Bachelor's of Science in Earth Systems, Energy, Science & Technology, and then immediately joined the Army."

"Is that a question?" Devon asked after a few moments of silence.

"It's certainly curious."

He sighed and then responded, "I racked up more than a little debt getting through Stanford. I figured I could use some G.I. Bill money to help float me through grad school."

"Doesn't Stanford have a coterminal degree program?"

"Again, that was money I didn't have."

Abe nodded. "Fair enough. What were you hoping to do with your degree?"

"I wanted to see what I could do to pull Earth out of the environmental castastro-fuck we find ourselves in," he said with a smile.

Abe nodded slowly as he pulled up Devon's service record. "But you didn't just sit on your hands for four years and rack up your eligibility, you had an illustrious career."

"My grandfather got pretty fucked up in Taiwan," Devon said. "Given what he went through, it didn't feel right to be half-assed."

"Nobody would accuse you of that. But even so, you completed Ranger School, Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course, Special Forces Qualification Course, and then," he let out a short laugh, "even I can't access where you went after that. But whatever it was, you got two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Distinguished Service Cross out of it."

"What's so funny about that?"

Abe shrugged. "It's just that it's very rare for me to come across information that I don't have access to." For all the military's reliance on defense contractors, the Special Forces was one area where the government kept the private sector locked out of its records. "But your last specialty assignment – that I can see, anyway – is listed as Eighteen-F. From what I understand, that requires you to spend more than a little time behind enemy lines."

Devon sat there without giving any acknowledgement.

Abe smiled and said, "I know you're fresh out of the service, so I don't expect you to tell me where you were or what you were doing; but whatever it was, you obviously liked it more than the thought of graduate studies."

Devon nodded. "Yes, sir, it was hard to go back to the books."

"So what happened?"

He paused. "My team got ambushed, and we had to fight our way back to our lines. I was the only one who made it, and not without some extra metal in my legs. They patched me up, but I was banged up enough that I couldn't stay in my unit. So I waited for my contract to expire, then I was out."

"So are you using that G.I. Bill money?"

Devon shook his head. "I kept getting turned down because I didn't have enough – or the right – hands-on experience in the field that they expected from applicants." He snorted. "Frankly, I think they just thought I was another grunt who wouldn't 'fit in' to academia. However, just as I was getting out, a friend of mine was coming back from Pandora and suggested that I might be able to leverage my Army experience to get in to the science program up there."

"And when RDA turned down your applications," Abe replied, "we suggested that you should consider work in our security division."

"Again," Devon said, "people assumed I was only good as a grunt."

Abe tapped his fingers on his desk. "Well, I can't say that what I have in mind for you isn't grunt work, but it may be more in line with some of your Eighteen-F skills. And if you do it well, your contributions will go a very long way towards pulling Earth out of the sink."

Devon was silent for a few moments. "I'm listening."

* * *

Abe set his bags outside the door and quietly entered Natalie's bedroom. When she was six, Natalie had pushed him and Krysta to redecorate her room in a Pandora motif. Opting against plastering the walls with animals and plants, they did what hundreds of thousands of other parents in similar positions did and purchased every Pandora-themed piece of merchandise on the market, capped by a spinning mobile of the Alpha Centauri system. Her bed cover was alive with Pandora's flora and fauna, and captive under her arms was a Na'vi doll, which she lovingly named _Seze_.

He sat on the edge of her bed and stroked her hair. "Honey? I need you to wake up," he said just above a whisper. Natalie stirred and slowly opened her eyes. He smiled and said, "You wanted to be sure I said, 'Goodbye.'"

The night before, he and Krysta had catered to her every whim. They were insistent that what could potentially be her last memory of her father be a positive experience. Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, a trip to the zoo in the afternoon, and spaghetti and ice cream for dessert. And despite the promise of an unlimited bedtime, after dinner, Natalie fell asleep halfway into the second act of her favorite movie. Before she fell asleep, however, she had made Abe promise that he would wake her up before he left.

She nodded slowly as she came out of her sleep. She moaned in lieu of words – perhaps in her semi-conscious state, she perceived saying something coherent – and extended her arms. She had not needed to be lucid, however, as he leaned forward and hugged her without additional prompting.

"Be good for your mom, okay?"

"Mm-hm."

He wasn't sure how long he held her, but he heard a rapping on the wall behind him. He turned to see Krysta standing in the doorway. "The company car is waiting, Abe."

He nodded, gave Natalie a kiss on her forehead, then gently lowered her back onto her bed. Before he stood up, however, she held Seze out to him. "Take her with you, Daddy," she said.

"Honey…" he was about to explain to her the rigid pre-approval process for cargo on interstellar flights, but he knew that the protocols were routinely violated. Instead, he opted for saying, "I think Seze would rather stay with you."

She shook her head. "She told me in my dream that she wanted to go home."

He hesitated, but Abe took Seze from Natalie's outstretched hand. "I'll make sure she gets there."

Natalie nodded. "Bye, Daddy."

He brushed her hair one more time. "Bye, Sweetie. Be good."

She rolled over and was asleep in moments. Abe walked past Krysta and gently packed Seze away in his bags. "I just hope she doesn't think it was a dream," he said.

Krysta put a hand on his shoulder. "If she does, it will have been a good dream."

He nodded, and she followed him downstairs to the main door. Before leaving, he embraced Krysta and kissed her. She pressed against him and responded in kind. Sooner than he would have wanted, however, he broke their embrace. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

He let out a laugh, "I'll try not to be a stranger."

She laughed back, but she also brushed away tears. "I know you'll find a way."

Abe nodded, then left the house and forced himself to not look back. He told Krysta he would not look back, and he heard the click of the door locking behind him, affirming for him that she would not be standing in the door waiting for that last glimpse of him speeding away. The RDA company car was idling in his driveway, and the driver stepped out to open the passenger door and stow his bags.

The forty minute drive in those pre-dawn hours to RDA's spaceport was easily the longest of his life. The car pulled up to a non-descript hangar, and from there Abe walked into the small office within. Variously standing and sitting around an ostensive conference table was Abe's nine-person team.

"Good morning, everyone," he said, and was greeted with a chorus of responses. "I hope you're not all as tired as I am, even though we're all going to be in cryosleep within two hours." They responded with tired laughs. "You all know me, but most of you don't know the other most of you. So, if you all would, very quickly go around and introduce yourselves." He nodded at the short woman with long, black hair standing nearest to him and said, "Let's start with you."

She smiled, looked at the group and said, "Dawn Chu."

"And your role?" Abe pressed.

"Oh, um, xenolinguist and onboard communications specialist."

Abe nodded to the next person, a taller, bald male in his early thirties. "Miguel Lopez, technology and armament specialist. Pilot."

"Scott Green," the man next to Miguel said. "Structural engineer, surface and onboard."

Next to Scott, a tan-skinned man waived two fingers and said, "Doctor Matthew Cook, xenobotanist and, er, doctor."

Sitting at the table in front of Scott, Parker looked around the room. "Parker Selfridge, _former_ Chief Administrator of Hell– ESC-One, Pandora specialist." He then shot a curt glance at Abe, which he did not acknowledge as the introductions went on.

Sitting next to Parker, a woman spoke up. "Kimberly Green, systems engineer." She looked back at Scott. "No relationship." A few people chuckled.

"Jose Hernandez," the next person said. "Xenolinguist, also communications specialist."

"Amy Hall." She paused and half shook her head and looked at Abe, "Team – Team's retired military expert?"

Abe offered a wry grin and said, "Lieutenant Colonel Hall is a counter-insurgency expert. Graduate of the Army War College, and most recently was an advisor to the Army Chief of Staff." He nodded to Devon, "And we'll end with you."

"Devon Angler, and you're also going to have to describe my role."

"Inside man."

Devon nodded. "Devon Angler, inside man."

"Thank you. You have all been briefed in part, but on this the hour of our departure, allow me to fill you in on the task at hand.

"Four months ago, RDA announced an industrial accident on Pandora." He looked at Parker. "That's not true. In short, we fought a war with the Na'vi, and we lost. They know we're coming back – they know as well as we do that the livelihood of our planet depends on Pandora – and we believe that a surviving group of rogue, RDA employees is providing material assistance in preparing their defenses.

"Our job is to make Pandora secure for materials and manpower to land and resume operations. Amy, I'm sure you can back me up on this, but we cannot land on Pandora with guns blazing. We don't have the logistical support for that. So we're going to have to be creative and lay the groundwork for the larger force coming in approximately one year behind us.

"Like I said, you have all been briefed over the last four months on your individual responsibilities, so now it's time to come together as a team."

A van pulled into the hangar. "I'm afraid we don't have time for questions. Get your things together, and follow me to the van."

From the hangar, the team traveled to a shuttle waiting on a tarmac at the other end of the expansive port. Half an hour later, they were docked at the orbiting station where the _Venture Star_ and one of her sister ships were being prepared to follow Abe's team in humanity's return to Pandora.

Their ship, the _Cybele_, was far less impressive than the fifteen-hundred meter long ISVs. It was an intrastellar shuttle only a few hundred meters long, and was originally designed to scout worlds within a solar system. RDA retrofitted the model to carry smaller crews for interstellar flight; however, the demand for heavy materials and large crews to and from Pandora meant that it was always cheaper to simply run the ISVs on the long-term missions. The shuttle had been modified further per Abe's demands.

One of the modifications Abe had demanded was that it have a similar propulsion system to the ISV, allowing it to make the trip to Pandora nine months faster. Abe was also told that, with the newer propulsion system, the whole thing could break apart; a fact he would never share with his team.

As the team made their way through the orbital station, Abe held Devon back. "Let them go into cryo, first."

"Why does it matter? We're all going to the same place."

"You're not going into cryo."

Devon's jaw dropped. "You're not serious."

"I am. You're going to be embedded with the Na'vi, and you need to train for it."

"What do you think I've been doing for the last four months?" he nearly shouted.

"You've been reading language books and researchers' notes," Abe responded. "Now, I'll admit that you have more experience in these kinds of things than I do; so you look me in the eye and tell me, honestly, would you have gone behind enemy lines on nothing more than language books and researchers' notes?"

Devon paused, then sighed. "No. But I was never in isolation for five years."

Abe offered a wry grin. "Look on the bright side," he said. "With time dilation, it will only feel like – like something else. I don't know specifically."

They boarded the ship, and Abe toured Devon through the various compartments. "You have food that has been very carefully rationed to match the expected flight time. That also includes a diet of anti-psychosis medication so you don't go HAL on our life support."

"What?"

"You don't watch Twentieth Century science fiction?" Devon shook his head. "You're missing out. The point is: Eat right and don't go crazy. You have your own living quarters, but you're going to be spending most of your time in the holographics bay. That's where we've installed the Na'vi immersion program. Avatar drivers were required to train for at least 480 hours with this program – you will have plenty more time."

"No kidding."

"And to make sure you don't try to sneak your way into cryo while we're traveling, every six months you're required to log into the command center and take a series of examinations. If you aren't up to our benchmarks by the time we arrive on Pandora, I'll consider you in breach of contract. We'll put you in cryo for the duration of our mission, the trip back to Earth, and all of your pay will be forfeited."

Devon clicked tongue. "I got it."

"You're mission critical," he said sternly. "We've put almost three-quarters of a billion dollars into your success. Live up to it."

"I've got it," Devon responded, articulating each word as though Abe had a hearing problem.

Abe smiled, nodded, and made his way to the cryo station. Minutes later, he was unconscious; and soon thereafter, _Cybele_ was on its way to Pandora.

* * *

Jake guided his ikran, _Rawke_, to land at Hell's Gate. Outside of the reduced perimeter the human colonists had built, Pandora had almost completely reclaimed the RDA compound. The refinery towers were overgrown with weeds and vines, and the landing strip was a small meadow where the _pa'li_ grazed on early-adapting shrubs. All this made the few buildings that the colonists maintained stand out as all the more alien.

Following Jake was Neytiri and a small band of warriors. Ten years earlier, they could have expected to be fired upon by numerous gun turrets. Some of those turrets were under the colonists' control inside the perimeter, while the rest were left to Pandora's mercy and had degraded beyond usefulness.

The Na'vi band landed outside the habitation module's entrance, and it was not but mere seconds later that Jake could see the children rushing to the windows, their faces showing a mix of awe and excitement. After several years on Pandora, a few of the colonists had become tired of the isolation and began building families. There had been early resistance to the idea – what kind of a future would children of a small population of isolated humans have? – but nature insisted on its own course.

Jake smiled and waved to the children, and they enthusiastically waved back. Not long afterwards, one of the scientists herded the children away from the window and back to whatever activity Jake's arrival had interrupted.

Norm emerged with Max from the module with several weapons lockers carted in tow. Their clock had ticked to less than six months, and Jake wanted to ensure that his warriors had enough time to become familiar with the weaponry in order to effectively repel the inevitable attack.

"We have twelve guns today," Norm said, bypassing the formal greetings. "Getting scrap metal to feed the stereolithographs is becoming more difficult. We've had more viperwolf and thanator sightings around the base – they're following the direhorses – so people don't want to venture out as much."

"This is fine," Jake said. "That puts us over one-hundred."

"We'll have more ammunition for you in the next batch."

Jake nodded and then turned to his warriors. "_Tìyomtìng aynga zamunge_." The warriors came forward with sacks of food, their exchange for the weapons. "We had an especially good hunt earlier, so this should be more than enough to hold you over for a while."

"Much appreciated." After the exchange was complete, Norm nodded to Neytiri. "_Kaltxi_."

She smiled at him and, with a slighter nod, responded, "_Kaltxi, ngaru lu fpom srak_?"

"I'm okay, thanks. I think I may be – we all are – starting to feel the effects of the lower gravity. I feel like I'm sixty years old when I wake up."

Jake frowned. "Are you keeping up with your exercises?"

"Exercise doesn't stop bone loss. If you know of a good calcium source, we'd love to get some of it." He sighed. "The kids especially need it."

He nodded. "Do you know if any of Grace's research found something close?"

"I haven't seen anything in her notes," Norm replied. "But I'll look again."

"Let me know."

"Let _us_ know," Neytiri corrected. "Your families are our families."

Norm smiled. "Thank you, Neytiri – _tsmuké _– that means a lot."

She smiled and replied, "You are welcome, _oeri tsmukan_."

Norm had been trying to gain acceptance with the Na'vi since he arrived on Pandora, and it was no secret that he was upset when Jake was able to accomplish that before him. Jake was impressed that he had been able to set his disappointment aside to accomplish their mission – first to promote diplomacy, and then to fight off RDA – but he was sure that it remained a sore point.

"We should get going," Jake said. "Thank you again for the help, Norm."

"Hey, what helps you helps us," he replied. "Everybody wins."

Jake and the others returned to their ikrans and took to the air. As they flew back to the rest of the Omaticaya, he flew in close to her. "You're going soft," he said with a wry grin. "What happened to keeping them out of sight and out of mind?"

She took in a breath before responding and looked at him sideways. "They are okay," she replied. "When the other Sky People come, I will not be so welcoming." After a moment's pause, she turned to look at him with a similar grin. "And do not think I did not notice how happy you were to see the little ones."

He smiled and said, "They're always so happy to see us. It's strange. They're the only Sky People born indigenous to Pandora , but they're the most enthusiastic about the life here, including Na'vi."

"For now, we will call them our children." Before he could respond, she added, "That does not mean I am freeing you from your responsibility."

He laughed and said, "The thought never crossed my mind."

* * *

As soon as he was free from cryo, he made his way to the ship's command center. Once there, he took a moment to marvel at Pandora. For all the video he had seen of it – both on and off its surface – he was taken aback by its verdant landscape. Earth's continents had appeared sickly and brown from orbit, but this was a planet proudly teeming with life.

The rest of his team made their way into the command center and took their stations. "Jose, give me a communications report."

"It's still firing up, Boss." A moment later, he said, "We have a light-com intercept – four hours ago. They look like radio frequency coordinates, and there are instructions to call in on our arrival."

"Are they compatible with our communications?"

Jose let out a short laugh and replied, "Yeah, but radio is only good for near-Earth missions."

"Just get it done. Dawn, can you do a scan to make sure we're not being intercepted?"

"The computer did a surface scan automatically upon entering orbit," she said. "There are no signs of active communications hardware on the surface, or at least nothing powerful enough to listen in on our channels."

"We had a fail-safe system of satellites in case our ground communications were knocked out," Parker said. "They could be using those."

"Hold on," Dawn replied. "I'm not seeing any activity from the satellites. They could be passively scanning the frequencies, but I would guess that they'd be looking for short-range, ship-to-ship communications to indicate our arrival, not long-range broadcasts."

"Which is now active, by the way," Jose said. "I don't know how, but we apparently have a two-way signal."

"The son of a bitch did it," Abe said quietly. He then activated the communications panel at his terminal. "This is the _Cybele_, does anybody copy?"

There were a few moments of silence; but just before Abe repeated the message, Doctor Walsh replied, "Abe! Congratulations, we've just made history. This is the first, real-time interstellar communication."

He chuckled and said, "Unfortunately we didn't bring any champagne with us, so you'll have to drink twice on our behalf."

Doctor Walsh's tone was more serious in his next communication. "The wormhole is only going to be stable for another two hours," he said, "and then it will be another three weeks before we can generate enough power to do this again. Have you logged any anomalies in your flight?"

"I don't know. Scott?"

He shook his head. "All normal."

"Kim?"

"We're green."

"We made it in one piece, Tom." A thought came to mind, and he looked around the command center. "Did anybody see Devon on their way in?"

"I'm here," a voice came from behind him. Abe turned and was startled by what he saw. Devon was alive, but he had lost significant weight and had grown a beard. He must not have hidden his expression well, because Devon said, "Yes, I know, I've seen better days."

"Hey, Tom, we've got two historic moments to celebrate. Add the longest, non-cryo space traveler to our logs."

"Jesus Christ, you had somebody lose cryo support?!"

"He never had it to begin with."

There was a long pause. "That was reckless, Abe, even for you."

"This whole mission is about necessary evils, Tom," he replied flatly.

"Still – Bah, nevermind. We'll reopen this channel in three weeks so you can provide your first update to the chairman. Earth, out."

"Wait, Tom!" Abe said quickly.

"Yes?"

"Can you get a message to…"

"She's my next phone call, Abe. Don't worry. Natalie's fine too, by the way. No relapses."

He paused to keep from being overcome with emotion in front of the team. "Thank you, Tom."

"Earth, out."

"We've lost the signal," Jose said.

Abe nodded. "Okay, people, take twenty minutes to get over your cryo headaches, and then report back here for your first assignments. Except for you, Doctor Cook. Take Devon back to the medical bay and check him over – twice if you have to."

While Matthew escorted Devon back for an examination, and the others to various parts of the ship to recuperate, Abe pulled up his training logs. He was surprised to see that Devon not only kept up with his benchmarks, but exceeded them. He let out a sigh of relief. "And now the hard part," he said to himself.

He looked back out the windows at Pandora. "I hope you've been preparing," he said. "I didn't come all the way out here for a walk in the park."


	6. Engagement

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

The team had assembled as instructed – including Matthew and Devon, whose check-up revealed that while the effects of prolonged space travel had taken a severe toll, he was otherwise healthy enough to perform his job. Abe used the command center's holotable to bring up the last orbital reconnaissance scans before RDA's evacuation. In stark contrast to the large continents which dominate Earth, the land on Pandora was an archipelago of variably large and small islands. None of the landmasses appeared much larger than Greenland.

He nodded at Parker and said, "Walk us through this cartographer's nightmare."

Parker spun the globe around and pulled out a flat map of a large island-continent near the moon's equator. He narrated as he highlighted features on the map, "Here's where we set up. Hallelujah Mountains up here, our primary excavation site is here, and this is where we were headed when the shit hit the fan."

"Zoom in on ESC-One."

Parker expanded the section of the map to reveal the pentagonal base. "This area is the airfield, barracks and storage facilities, here is the refinery, and then this area houses the administration and living quarters."

"Scott, has the computer fed in the data from our surface scans?"

"Yeah, Boss," he replied. "Just call it up."

They had not been in orbit long enough to map the whole of Pandora, but _Cybele_ had scanned the content under current examination. Abe opened a window next to the decade-old scan of Hell's Gate and zoomed in to reveal the ship's scan. "Wow."

Even Parker whistled. "Jesus, they must have burned the place down."

"Maybe there was an actual industrial accident after you peaced-out," Jose offered.

"No," Matthew said. "This is about what you would expect on Earth if the jungles had, say, twenty or thirty years of unchecked growth in fringe human settlements. Given that the base was surrounded, though, and the aggressive nature of Pandora's flora, it's just been more quickly reclaimed."

"Look at the living quarters," Scott said. "They've clearly been maintained. The renegades are either still alive or didn't die off until recently."

Abe nodded. "Parker, can you highlight the defensive weaponry along the fence in the old scan?"

"We had large turrets at the points, and then four small turrets along each fence about three hundred-fifty meters apart."

Scott expanded the recent orbital scan. "They've clearly destroyed the old fence. If we assume they used the turret towers as anchor points, it looks like they preserved the western and southwestern apexes and the fence between them, went out to the second small towers on the northwest and southern fences, then connected them to form a rhomboid. I can't tell if they tried to relocate some of the other towers along their long fence." He paused and pointed at a smaller area near the compound. "There's an enclosure there, I don't know what for, but they've got a walkway or tunnel out to it."

"That's the avatar compound," Parker said. "Farm, longhouse, gym – pretty much an unpressurized habmod. I don't know why they'd build a walkway, though; there was already a tunnel connecting the avatar area to the scimod."

"Maybe there was a maintenance issue," Scott suggested. "If they've abandoned most of the compound, why would they bother to maintain all the various tunnels?"

"It also takes a lot of power to keep all of those buildings pressurized," Kimberly said. "Tunnels add to that strain. They may be having power problems."

"Was the avatar compound defended?" Abe asked.

"It had a secondary enclosure with a watchtower," Parker said, "and it was near the fence turrets. Not much else."

"Given what you're looking at, Scott, how many turrets do you think are operational?"

He shook his head. "Two apex towers, eight or nine of the fence towers, and maybe more if they moved the turret superstructures off of the towers and into the maintained area. Without maintenance, though, I'd say everything else is beyond repair at this point."

Abe nodded. "Okay, next up, finding the Na'vi." He went back to the continent-wide view of the old scans and activated the heat signature overlay.

Amy whistled. "That's a lot of clans," she said.

"How many of these are animal herds, though?" Matthew asked.

"Most of the herds are too small and hidden by the canopy to be detected," Parker said. "We figured these are clans because their pet dragons live in the tree tops."

"What was the population estimate for this continent?" Amy asked.

"About seventy-thousand," Parker said. "Again, they all live up in these big-ass trees, though, so they don't all show up on scans. It could be more."

"How many of these 'big-ass trees' are there, Parker?" Abe asked.

"Lots," he said dismissively. "Sorry, I wasn't sent here to count trees."

"The _kelutral _– the 'big-ass trees' – grow most often near Pandorium deposits," Matthew said.

"How many Pandorium deposits are on this continent?"

"Not counting the Hallelujah Mountains?" Parker activated the geology overlay, highlighting the Pandorium deposits that were detectable from orbit. "About sixty that we know of, but we set up around the bigger deposits. The rest are too small and would have taken years to get to."

"Doctor Augustine's notes said that each tree could hold fifteen-hundred Na'vi," Devon said.

"Shit," Amy said. "That's ninety-thousand right there. At most, but still."

"And I'm guessing that they don't all live in these 'big-ass trees,'" Abe said. Parker nodded. He looked at Devon and said, "We need a count, something more reliable than this guesswork." Devon nodded.

"Now, you destroyed that one tree for the Pandorium, right? So they had to move somewhere." Abe brought up the new scan and activated the same layers as before, holding the two scans side-by-side. "There are too many new signatures," he said. "Anybody have a good way to narrow the field?"

"We're assuming the renegades are giving them material support, right?" Dawn said.

"Right," Abe replied.

Dawn went to one of the communications terminals. "We can check the tasking history of the satellite network. Maybe they used them to help the Na'vi clan find a new home."

"That isn't going to leave fingerprints, is it?" Abe asked. "If they're monitoring their satellites, we don't want them to know we're here, yet."

She shook her head. "I can mask it." They waited as she searched, and moments later she said, "I'm going to send some coordinates to the holotable. Let me know if any heat signatures come up in the grid."

The map of the new scans shifted towards the southwestern shore. A few kilometers into the jungle, there was a medium-sized signature. "Got one," Abe said. "There's no Pandorium in the area, though."

"There doesn't have to be," Matthew said. "It just happens to be a strong correlation." He brought up an elevation map of the grid. "The scanner wasn't refined enough to break through the jungle canopy and get topographical data, so the height being displayed is probably tree tops. And there's a spike in the same area as the heat signature."

"A 'big-ass tree?'" Abe asked.

"Maybe."

Abe was silent for a few moments while he digested the information in front of him. "Jose and Dawn, I want you to deploy your audiodrones over the colony, the heat signature in this grid, and over the five clans closest to the colony. Keep the rest in reserve as we identify targets."

The drones were developed for intelligence agencies – government and private – to simultaneously monitor thousands of electronic communications for key words, but the ones carried by the _Cybele_ had been modified to detect open-air conversations. Their shells contained thousands of nanoparticles that refracted light around them, effectively giving them invisibility. Solar powered with battery back-ups, they could orbit a location for a month on Earth; but with the persistent lighting conditions on Pandora – from the stars and from bioluminescence – they could stay in orbit much longer.

"We're on it," Jose said.

"Miguel, make sure the drones are operating flawlessly before they launch. If you detect any anomalies on their way to the surface, activate self-destruct and launch from the reserves."

He nodded, and Abe turned his attention to the engineers. "Kim and Scott, learn as much about the new Hell's Gate as you can," he ordered. They nodded.

"Amy, assume the maximum population of Na'vi and start developing counterinsurgency models – for us and them."

"Got it, Boss." She paused and added, "Although I think it will be easier to model for them."

He looked at Parker and said, "Back up these teams as they need you." Parker nodded, but he was clearly unhappy with being relegated to a supporting role. Abe could not care less.

"Doctor Cook and Devon, come back with me to the storage bay."

Back in storage, Abe opened a cargo container to reveal an amniotic tank with a mature avatar inside. "Help me get this to medical."

Devon whistled. "Is that the new me?"

Abe nodded.

Matthew appeared confused and said, "It doesn't look anything like him."

"There's no way we can send a standard-model avatar into the jungle," Abe said. "That's a death sentence. This is grown from almost pure Na'vi DNA."

"You can't establish a psychic link with a greater than 90-percent Na'vi avatar."

"Good thing we aren't trying to," Abe replied. Matthew's confused look intensified. "What? You thought the colonists down there would let us use their link beds? We can't establish a link from orbit, either, because the signal degrades over long distances and through the atmosphere."

"So what's your plan?"

Abe opened an adjacent cargo hold. "I'm sure you'll recognize this piece of equipment, Doctor."

Matthew leaned over and went slackjawed. Devon interrupted the silence and said, "I don't recognize that."

"It's a neurocartographic-transference terminal: 'NeuCarTT.' It's like the mother of EEGs, except instead of just recording brain patterns, it writes them onto another brain." Matthew looked at Abe and said, "Which means I assume you have another one of these for the avatar."

Abe nodded. "Next cargo container," he said.

"Does that actually work?" Devon asked. "What is it good for?"

Matthew was still fixated on the machine. "If a rich guy gets into an accident or suffers from some muscular dystrophy," he said, "then he might opt to have his body cloned – illicitly, of course, which is why this is only for rich people – and get his brain mapped into the healthy body. Then he disposes of the weakened body goes on his merry way living a new, healthy life."

He turned to Abe and said, "I also assume that at least the brain in that avatar is human, or you have a life-sized Na'vi doll on your hands."

"That's why we need to get it into the medical bay," Abe said. "You have some testing to do."

* * *

Jake was having flashbacks. First he thought about his drill instructor on Parris Island yelling at him for not moving fast enough between the three firing positions. Then he thought about Neytiri teaching him how to properly draw an arrow. Now, he was the one, gun slung over his shoulder, hitting elbows, kicking heels apart, and twisting upper bodies to mold his fighters into the proper firing positions.

"I know this is not the way you have been taught to hunt," he told his assembled warriors. "But when the Sky People attack, your arrows and spears will not be enough." He made eye contact with one of the veterans from the battle at the Tree of Souls. She looked away from him. "When your guns have no more bullets, then you can pick up your bows; but before then, I expect that every one of your bullets will have hit your targets."

He turned to walk back down the line and saw Neytiri approaching. When she came to him, she put a hand on his chest and said, "Jake, you have had them out here all morning. Let them come back to it later."

He put a hand over hers and said through a sideways smile, "I don't remember you cutting me a break during my training."

She grinned and replied, "That is because you were _skxawng_. Omaticaya warriors learn well." Jake heard a few chuckles along the line.

He sighed and said, "Take a break, but be ready for me to call you back before too long."

The warriors dispersed, and Jake continued to hold on to Neytiri's hand as they walked in the opposite direction. She looked at him, her smile beginning to fade, and said, "Some are worried about your methods, Jake. They say it is too alien, too much like Sky People's fighting."

He looked back at her. "What do you say?"

She sighed. "It is alien, but it is necessary." She shook her head. "When we were on our journey here, my dreams would take me back to our battle, and I felt fear again. I felt sadness. When we found this home, those dreams stopped. Now your Norm says they are close again, and those dreams have come back."

More than once in recent weeks, Neytiri had awoken him as she turned restlessly about in their hammock. Jake would try to wake her, but most times she would just press closer to him. In time, he learned that brushing her cheek would calm her restlessness. When he would ask her about it in the morning, however, she would say that she could not remember the dream.

She squeezed his hand and smiled. "I think you will make my dreams stop again."

Jake brought her close and kissed her forehead. "You know I will."

Neytiri nodded at his gun. "Can I hold it?" He was taken aback. It was the first time she had ever expressed an interest in human weapons – or, at least, an interest beyond destroying it. He lowered the machine gun from his shoulder and handed it to her. She ran her fingers over its casing. "It is cold."

"Trust me," he said with a chuckle, "it heats up."

She tried to hold it in a firing position, but clearly she did not know how to manage the weight distribution. He smiled and stood behind her, correcting her stance – perhaps more intimately than he would have with the rest of his warriors. She turned to look at him with a knowing grin, an expression he had learned to respond to years ago. He leaned forward to kiss her, when he heard a young voice call from behind him, "_Olo'eyktan_! You must come see!"

Jake and Neytiri both turned, decoupled, and waited for the youth – who was in turn followed by three other youths – to approach. "You must come see. There is something wrong with our trees." Before he explained, he and the other children were off running in the other direction. He shrugged at Neytiri, took his gun back from her, and followed them.

A few hundred yards later, he got an explanation. "We were going to harvest fruit, when Lrrtokyu saw the trees blowing without wind. We looked up and saw it, too."

"Where did you see this?" Jake asked. Without hesitation, the children pointed to the same place in the forest. He and Neytiri turned; but after a few moments of staring into the jungle, they looked at each other and shrugged.

Neytiri turned to the youths. "You should not make up stories like that," she said sternly.

They looked hurt. "We are not making a story," one of the female youths said. "They waved like they were underwater."

"They aren't doing it now," Jake said. "But if they do it again, find me."

"What if you are late again?" a male youth asked.

He smiled and said, "I will be sure to run faster next time. Now go off, back to your duties." The children exchanged glances before they walked away, not nearly with the enthusiasm that they had shown when they had approached him.

Jake looked at Neytiri, whose arms were crossed. She looked at him and said, "Jake, why did you let them tell lies?"

Jake shook his head. "They were scared," he said. "I saw it in their eyes."

"Children are scared all the time," she replied. "They are children. They do not know everything."

"So should we punish them for ignorance?" Neytiri did not answer right away. "Whatever it was, I don't think they'll see it again. We should let it go." She frowned, but uncrossed her arms. He smiled at her and said, "Once they mentioned fruit, I did feel like eating."

"I do not feel hungry, yet," she replied.

He stroked her cheek, grinned and said, "Then maybe I can help you work up an appetite." She took his hand and they took a long walk back towards the training field.

* * *

"We've got a hit, Boss!" Jose called out.

"Play it for me," Abe ordered.

A moment later, a female voice filled the command center. "_Pelun, Jake, nga tolängung aytsleng ayfoti teng_?"

Then a male's voice spoke, "_Letxopu ayfori lìmu_. _Oel kolame mì_ _ayfoti menari._"

Abe stared at him until Jose said, "Oh, um, the girl is asking why the guy let some people get away with lying, and he's saying it's because they were legitimately scared. But the point is that it's the first hit we've had on the 'Jake' keyword."

"Where did it come from?"

"That clan in the southwest."

Abe called Parker into the command center and had Jose replay the intercepted conversation. Before he could ask his question, Parker answered it. "That was Jake," he said. "I definitely recognize his voice."

He smiled. "Excellent. Good work, Jose." He patched into the ship's intercom system. "All hands to medical."

The team stripped out most of the equipment – and the de-canted avatar, breathing with the help of an exopack modified to pump the same combination of noxious gasses which made Pandora's atmosphere – from the medical bay and transferred it to the cargo hold, as the carts were too large to move out of the hold. Several hours and a slew of choice words later, the equipment was reinstalled and running.

"Devon, I hope you're not shy," Matthew said. "I need you as God intended."

He obliged the doctor, but not without saying, "Just remember, ladies, we're in a pressurized, air-conditioned metal container in space. It's cold in here."

"Already with the excuses," Dawn replied.

"Guys, move the avatar onto the other cart," Matthew instructed. "Devon, get your cold ass up here."

Over the next hour, Matthew turned the team into his assistants and prepared Devon and the avatar for the operation. At the end of the processes, Devon said, "I don't think the electrode wardrobe is ever going to catch on, Doc."

"Darn. There goes my fall-back career." Matthew activated Devon's cart. "Say good night to the team, Devon." A combination of anesthetics and muscle relaxants were released intravenously. As Devon slipped into unconsciousness, Matthew repeated the process for the avatar. "It's a little odd giving general anesthetics to a lifeless body," he admitted, "but God help us if it were to wake up in the middle of the transfer."

"Why the muscle relaxant?" Amy asked.

"We're going to over-stimulate their central nervous systems," Matthew replied. "If they started to spasm, they could bang up the rig – especially that avatar."

Amy nodded. "And that would be bad."

"That would be very bad."

"You know, you never answered Devon's question from a couple of days ago," Abe said.

Without looking up from the monitor of Devon's cart, Matthew nodded and replied, "You mean about whether or not this works? Well, if I told him that it only works one time out of four, he might be too nervous to do this at all; once again leaving you with a Na'vi doll."

"What happens when it doesn't work?" Jose asked. "Other than death."

"You turn a healthy brain into a vegetable," he replied. "That, or the mapping doesn't work, and you win a special entry in the NDSM-X. Or both. Oh, and then you die." As he spoke, metal caps at the top of the carts fitted themselves to Devon and the avatar's heads. Seconds later, a monitor linked up to both carts activated. Matthew transferred the data to a tablet and meticulously, visually confirmed the information on the screen by walking around the carts.

"I think we're good to go, Boss. Just give me the word."

Abe nodded. "Do it."

On activation, a steady humming emanated from the carts as they steadily injected a mix of chemicals into the bodies to prepare them for the coming synaptic overload. Soon, the humming turned into a steady whine as electricity began to pulse through the machines, and then the whine simply became noise.

"We're firing on all cylinders now, Boss!" he shouted into Abe's ear; but even then, he could only barely hear him above the din. Abe figured that most of the team would have left the cargo hold by now if they were not spellbound by the procedure.

Abe looked over Matthew's shoulder at the tablet and saw the two brains lighting up like fireworks as flashes of colors moved about. He also saw that most of Devon's vitals had spiked, triggering a number of alarms. He pointed at the warnings, but Matthew just waved him away. "There's nothing we can do about it!" he shouted. "Like I said: one in four!"

Minutes passed, it seemed, before the noise began to subside – or, at least, before the ringing in Abe's ears subsided. Matthew was still shouting, but it may have been as much because his own ears were ringing. "We have to wait for the anesthesia to wear off before we know if it worked!"

"How long?!" Abe asked.

"Give it an hour!"

The team went off to eat, but Abe opted to stay in the cargo hold while Matthew regularly checked the monitors. Some time over an hour later, Matthew made a report. "Devon's brain is fried."

"How bad?"

He shook his head. "If we got him to a hospital on Earth – a good one – they might be able to restore his cognitive functions, but he'd be quadriplegic." He looked at Abe. "It would be locked-in syndrome."

Abe nodded slowly. "But he's otherwise alive, right?"

"Yeah, other than not being able to do anything, he's alive."

He sighed. "Okay, move him into cryo. Maybe he'll use his pay to have another one of these procedures to get into a healthy body."

Matthew chuckled and replied, "I don't know that there's enough brain left to be stimulated for a transfer, but who knows what the state of the science will be when he gets home."

"What about my Na'vi doll?"

Matthew checked the monitor. "Well, I'll be damned," he said. "It looks healthy, it's probably safe to transfer back to the gurney. We won't know how much made it over until he wakes up, though."

"I'll get the team to help."

Another hour passed before the avatar began to stir. He was restrained to prevent any potentially damaging, sudden moves as he regained consciousness. Matthew leaned over and began with an eye examination. "Reaction's good. Can you tell me your name?"

"What?" the avatar asked.

"What's your name?"

"Devon Angler."

"Where are you?"

"On the _Cybele_."

Matthew held up three fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Nine."

Abe's heart sank; and when Matthew looked back at him, the expression on his face was no better. But then Devon laughed. "I'm fucking with you, Doc. Three."

"Are you breathing okay?"

"It feels like any other exopack," he said. Matthew was getting ready for another question, but Devon preempted him. "I'm fine, Doc. Now let me up and get me some clothes."

"Is it cold in your new body, too?" Dawn asked.

Despite being restrained, Devon still managed to turn his hand to give her the finger. "Woah," he said.

"What?" Matthew asked.

"I know I only have four fingers," he said, "but I swear I felt five when I did that."

Matthew nodded. "Phantom limb. It happens with amputee patients – they think they've still got all the parts. Your neural map was wired for five fingers, so it's going to take a while to relearn to live with four."

"Is it going to impair his motor functions?" Abe asked.

Matthew shook his head. "No, it will just be weird for a while." He looked at Devon and asked, "Or does it hurt."

"Nah, just weird. Now, can I get up?"

Matthew undid the restraints, and Devon quickly got to his feet – and just as quickly knocked his head into the ceiling. "Shit!"

"You're nine and a half feet tall, Devon," Matthew said. "You'll be better off duck-walking around the ship."

"I'll manage. Now, my clothes?"

Abe shook his head. "If you stumble into the clan wearing khaki, I think they'd put two and two together. You'll have to shop for some hide on the surface." He paused while Devon muttered and Dawn snickered. "By the way, have you given any thought to your story for when you do arrive?"

"_Toruk_ attacked me and my _ikran_," he replied. "I got knocked off, hit my head, and don't remember anything before that."

"Other than the amnesia cliché," Abe said with a sigh, "I have a problem with that."

"What?"

"There isn't a scar on your body. And if you deliberately crash land hard enough to believably knock your head, you might outright kill yourself."

"I can take care of that," Matthew said. "I'll use a local anesthetic, give him a believable head wound, and then he can deploy to the surface."

Devon nodded. "I can live with that. It can't hurt any worse than my head does now."

"Fine," Abe replied. "You have thirteen hours before we're in position to launch your pod, so work it out."

* * *

Devon retired to his quarters, waiting to be summoned by the doctor. They had agreed to wait until a few hours before the launch window to perform the 'cosmetic' surgery. He was now too tall to comfortably stretch out on his bed, so he leaned against the wall while he variously wiggled his toes, fingers, and new to him, his tail. He figured out that it was his ring fingers that were now phantoms, as was the case with his little toe.

His focus was broken with a knock on his door. "Come in," he called. He was also getting used to hearing his voice as a little deeper than he recalled.

Dawn entered. He grinned at her. "You'll have to forgive me for not being decent," he said. "But apparently I can't go to the surface in khaki."

"That's fine," she said as she sat on the edge of the bed. "So, how does it feel?"

"Not half bad. I think I understand how Jake got addicted."

"Yeah?"

"I remember what it was like when my legs got shot up," he said with a headshake. "I can't imagine being a cripple from it. So to go from that to this – I wouldn't give it up if I were him, either."

"The way Parker tells it," Dawn said as she rested a hand on his thigh, "it was a girl that did him in." Devon looked down at her hand, then into her eyes. She smiled at him. "So, you're going to stroll into this clan with a nasty bump on your head, maybe get tended to by some pretty, Na'vi nurse who's wondering if you're eligible…"

"Na'vi mate for life," he interrupted. "If I've lost my memory, I won't be able to say for sure that I don't have some heartbroken mate waiting for me to return from my hunt."

"You also won't be able to say for certain that you don't," she responded as she leaned in close to him. "What if you encounter a very persistent female."

He leaned in towards her. "I'll just have to be stern with her, fight her off if I have to."

"You might lose control and blow your cover."

"That would be bad."

"Very bad."

"So, what do you propose?" he asked as he placed a hand on her waist.

"Remove some of the uncertainty," she whispered into his ear. "Make the lie a little more honest."

He turned to kiss her, but was stopped by the mask of his exopack. He growled – When did he start growling? – but she laughed. "Don't worry," she said as she lazily rested her hands on his shoulders. "We can just cut to the chase."

Hours later, he was being escorted to an escape pod, bloodied from his deeper-than-expected wound. The doctor had been insistent on making it appear as natural as possible, bruising and all; and as the local anesthetic wore off, he wondered if he hadn't taken a little too much pleasure in the work.

"We've plotted your crash course into the pod's computer," Abe said, "but that will just get the rockets pointed you in the right direction. You will still need to go manual once you're in the lower atmosphere."

"My guess is the computer isn't factoring in the ocean as a landing spot," he said. "So I will definitely need to slow down."

Abe nodded. "On that point, keep an eye on your GPS. There aren't any stand-out geographic features until you're near the coast, so you run the risk of splashing down too far out if you just rely on your gut."

Once at the pod, Devon, with Miguel's help, crammed himself into the seat. His knees were up to his chin. "Thank God it's going to be a short flight."

"Can you get your harness down?" Miguel asked. Devon shook his head. "Definitely make it a soft landing, then, or else you'll smash through the canopy."

He laughed. "You know, even with all the missions I did on Earth, I can't remember one where I almost died three times before making it to my objective."

Abe grinned at him. "Hey," he said, "I told you it was dangerous."

"That's a fact." He took a deep breath. "Okay, let's do this before the window closes."

Miguel and Abe left the podbay, at which point the airlock doors sealed up. He waited until Abe made it back to the command post and activated the escape protocols that would activate the escape chutes. Minutes later, a siren sounded, and his pod's electronics activated. He flipped the switch to close the canopy, and from there _Cybele_'s computer interfaced with the pod's autopilot and oriented Devon for his launch.

The chute's door opened, and Devon stared into the Pandoran ocean, cloaked in the night's darkness. Its landmasses, however, were still vaguely discernable, as they were illuminated by the jungle's bioluminescent fauna.

Shortly after the scene was revealed to him, Devon was accelerated away from the ship by a magnetic catapult. Seconds later, rockets kicked in, and he accelerated towards Pandora.

Minutes passed before he entered the outer atmosphere, at which point he prayed that he was not incinerated. Into the third iteration of his prayer, an indicator on the control panel let him know that he could assume manual control.

Devon activated speed brakes, slowing down until he could deploy the pod's wings to allow him to glide eastward towards his target coast. His eyes darted from one instrument to the next – speed, altitude, position.

He realized he was too far from the shore.

"Shit." He disengaged the speed brake and pitched up, hoping the combination of speed and altitude would get him closer; but as he was unfamiliar with Pandora's dense atmosphere, he did not know the angle at which he would risk stalling out. As he lost speed, however, he knew a stall would come soon – and sooner than he needed.

Just as he got the shore in sight, warning indicators began to light up. "Flight's over," he said. He gently pushed the nose down to avoid stalling and plummeting from the sky; but his airspeed was too fast. Just feet above the water, he pulled back on the stick in the hopes that he could keep the worst of the impact at the rear of the escape pod.

Devon slammed into the water and, unrestrained, fulfilled Miguel's prediction and launched forward through the canopy. He didn't have time to register this, however, before he landed in the ocean.

Mercifully, he wasn't knocked unconscious, and kicked his way to the surface. He had a moment of panic when he surfaced and realized that his exopack had been stripped away in the crash, but when he felt no ill effects from his first gasps for air, the panic subsided.

He looked around to see if he could spot the coast, and as he rose on the crest of a wave, he could make out the bioluminescent jungle in the distance – in the far distance. As Devon made his first stroke towards the shore, he was greeted by a sharp pain in his right shoulder.

"Fuck!" he said at the pain. He knew it was broken.

He also knew, however, that he had no other options but to bear it, and so made the painful swim towards the shore. He heard a roar from behind him, and turned to see that the pod's self destruct sequence had kicked in. The pieces would sink, preventing any evidence of a human arrival from falling into the hands of a passing Na'vi.

It was well after dawn when Devon, exhausted and in a pain he hadn't felt in years, waded onto the beach, where he promptly collapsed.

He lay there until dawn gave way to morning, at which point he managed to get to his knees and felt behind his right ear for a protrusion. Devon pressed down on it, and he heard a dull noise.

"Hey, Boss, do you copy?"

"Five by five," Abe replied. "We tracked your course. It looked rough. It took me an hour to figure out if you were swimming or drifting with the current."

He paused. "Where'd you put the tracking device?"

"In the communicator. What's your status?"

In the daylight, he could see more clearly the damage the crash inflicted. "I broke my arm and cut myself pretty well, but all in all it's nothing too serious for crashing into the ocean."

"At least you didn't break your legs," Abe replied. "You still have a day's walk ahead of you."

Devon stared into the jungle and snorted. "Thank you for the reminder."

"Listen, you're going to have to drop the English from here on out. Dawn and Jose will be taking even shifts monitoring communications during the day, and you're going to have to leave a message if you report in at night."

"_Tslolam_."

He moved his fingers from the protrusion, and the noise cut out. He became more aware of the noises of wildlife emanating from the jungle. It was a day's walk to his target, but he knew he needed to manage his wounds, first.

He scavenged along the coast and the fringes of the jungle for resources. He had made sure to memorize the poisonous plants in the notes he studied, confident enough that he could harvest fruit and fix a splint to his arm and wrap bandages around his cuts without coming into contact with some ungodly toxin. From there, he wove together ferns and fibrous bark to make a crude loincloth.

It was well into the afternoon when he finally made his way into the jungle, hoping he was close to the right bearing. He reached back behind his ear. "Am I going the right way?"

"It took you long enough," Dawn replied, "but yeah. You won't make it before night, and you'll probably wander off course, so check back in the morning."

"Got it." He disconnected. "As long as I'm not eaten or poisoned by then."

* * *

Jake heard the commotion, but he had barely stepped foot outside the Hometree when two of his sentries approached – a crowd of Omaticaya behind them – carrying another, badly wounded Na'vi between them. "Did you do this to him?" he asked.

They shook their heads. "We heard him stumbling about the jungle – very loud, very clumsy."

"I can see why." The male was barely conscious. Cuts and bruises covered his body, and bloodied bandages dangled from his skin, the remnants of some hasty first aid. A wound on his head was festering. "Treat him. We'll get his story later." The sentries nodded and carried the wounded one into the Hometree. Some of the Omaticaya tried to follow behind, but he stopped them. "Not all of you can help," he said. "Go back to your duties. I'm sure you will hear when our guest is well."

Jake, however, did follow the sentries as they carefully lowered the wounded Na'vi onto a bed of ferns. Soon after, Mo'at and a band of healers came with jars of water and fresh bandages. Mo'at provided the first diagnosis. "There are no animal bites, nor weapon scars," she said. "And I do not see signs of poisons. He must have been thrown about or fallen."

"Does he have any markings of a clan?"

She shook her head. "He could have wandered about for days and lost all his markings," she said.

"Given his wounds, I'm surprised he wasn't stalked and killed from the smell of his blood."

Mo'at nodded and then gave her prognosis. "He was strong enough to survive out there. He will live."

"Keep me informed," he replied. "Let me know if you need anything."

She nodded and then returned her attention to leading the medicine unit.

Neytiri came to his side. "I have sometimes seen hunters come home attacked by animals, but this is strange to me."

"Me too," he said with a nod. "Do you think he was cast out of a clan? I don't see wounds like that around here unless it's either a fight or an animal attack."

"Perhaps. When the time is right, you will ask him these questions," she said, taking him by his arm and leading him away. "Mother is very good at healing."

Jake nodded. "I've seen her work before. I'm sure he'll be fine in her care."

As they walked away, youths came running forward with spears in hand. "Is it true? Have Sky People returned?" one asked.

"We will fight them off!" another said enthusiastically.

Jake held up his hands. "It was a stranger, a wounded brother. Not Sky People."

"You were a Sky Person, once," the first youth said. "Maybe he is like you."

Jake's eyes widened in fear, and he turned to Neytiri. She had the same expression. He darted back to the Hometree and pushed aside the healers. He looked more carefully at the stranger lying before him.

The face was flatter than Jake's, and his neck longer. His shoulders were not as broad. His hands and feet only had four digits.

"Is something wrong, Jakesully?" Mo'at asked, her tone sharp – clearly offended by the interruption.

He shook his head and stood up. "No, mother. I'm sorry."

She put her hand on his chest. "I know what you were looking for. I looked, too."

He nodded and walked away. More youths had gathered to form a kind of militia. He waved them off. "No, he is not a Sky Person. Save your spears for another time."

The youths practically shuffled away in disappointment at a battle denied. Neytiri, however, was still not quite over the shock of the suggestion. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Unless they killed Norm and the others and reactivated the links, there's no way they could send an avatar here without us knowing about it."

She took a deep breath and nodded. "I trust you are right, Jake. I hope you are right."

"We still have a few months before we should expect them. We need to stay calm and focused on our defenses until then."

Neytiri took another breath, then managed a smile. "I should go back to teaching the songs," she said. He nodded, and she kissed him on the cheek before walking towards the group of children who moments earlier were about to form battle lines.

Jake rubbed his eyes as his mind raced with the possibilities of tricks RDA could pull, and would pull, to expose his weaknesses. He was focused, but he was far from calm.


	7. Position

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Andrew39 pointed out in an earlier review RDA's development of FTL communication, which I was unaware of at the outset. I weighed doing some retcon, but it would be convoluted. So, I simply offer my apologies for the error.

* * *

Despite help from _Cybele_'s scanners, Devon spent two days and nights in the jungle. He, like the rest of the crew, had assumed the jungle would be like the thin, climate-devastated vestiges of the old rainforests that existed on Earth. They had never seen anything else. He was not prepared for the thickness of the vegetation, nor the energy that he would spend avoiding predators.

He had always intended to put on a show of exhaustion when he "stumbled" into his target; but when the Na'vi hunting party found him, he was legitimately incoherent.

Devon had also underestimated how quickly his untreated wounds would become infected. Without the treatment he received once he arrived at the clan, he was certain that he would have died before the end of the third night.

However, as dawn broke on his second day with the Omaticaya, Devon was more optimistic about his chances for survival. The Na'vi had taken great care to clean his wounds, feed him, and provide him with shelter, although he had been too exhausted to acknowledge their presence and efforts with more than a few grunts and nods.

Despite their care, Devon began to feel the still considerable pain of his wounds as he woke up. He could also feel an array of bandages wrapped about him with twine. He reached up to touch the bandage over the infected laceration on his head, but a hand grasped his forearm. "Careful, friend," a male said. "You are not yet healed enough to remove the bandages."

Devon tried to sit upright, but he put too much pressure on his still-broken arm. He took in a sharp breath, grunted, and fell back down on the fern bed.

The male beside him chuckled. "You are also not yet ready to move about."

"I have come to think the same thing," he replied as he looked at his caregiver with half-open eyes.

"Ah! He speaks!" the Na'vi said with a smile. "It is good you have healed enough to do that."

Devon nodded slowly. "Can I have some water?"

"Of course." The male handed him a cup. As Devon drank, he said, "My name is Tseyo. You were unable to answer us yesterday, but may I ask your name now?"

Devon stayed silent for a few moments and furrowed his brow. "I don't know it," he said.

Tseyo laughed. "You joke poorly, stranger. Please, what is your name?"

"Believe me, friend, I would tell you if I could remember it. I have nothing to hide in keeping it a secret." He paused. "Or so I believe."

"I will get Mo'at," Tseyo said as he stood. "Perhaps she knows of a way to help you remember yourself." He left through a thin, fern partition. From the sizeable gaps between the large fronds, Devon discerned that it had less to do with privacy than to demarcate the small alcove in which the Na'vi were caring for him.

Moments later, Tseyo returned with an elder female. Lavishly dressed for a Na'vi, she had the presence of royalty; and she carried herself as someone who was more than slightly accustomed to having others obey her commands. "I see you, Stranger," she said to him plainly.

"I see you, _Tsahik_," he replied.

Mo'at chuckled. "I am not the _tsahik_ of these people – not any longer." She crossed her arms. "Tell me, stranger, have we not given you shelter, care and food? Why do you return our kindness with secrecy?"

"I mean no disrespect to you or your people," he offered. "I cannot explain it, but I also cannot remember who I am."

She knelt beside him, grasped his chin and turned his head. She lifted the bandage on his forehead to inspect the laceration. "Tell me, what is it that you do remember?"

"I can see faces, but I have no names for them. I can see hunts, but I cannot say from when. I can see places, but I do not know where they are."

"What do you remember from before you came here?"

He swallowed hard. "I was with my _ikran_, when _toruk_ came from above. Then I was falling, and now I have woken up here."

Mo'at sighed. "The _nantang_ may have spared you, but the jungle has not. I think your blood is tainted from the rot infecting your wounds. It does not appear you hit your head hard enough to affect your memory."

She turned to Tseyo. "Stay here. I will find Jakesully and tell him our guest is awake." He nodded, and Mo'at departed.

Tseyo looked at him with his brow raised. "What were you doing traveling alone on your _ikran_? _Toruk_ always attacks the ones who are alone."

"I do not know if I was alone in the sky," he replied. "I only know that I was alone in the jungle. _Toruk_ may have attacked my friends as well."

Tseyo did not look completely convinced, but he did not press for further details.

Devon assumed that the five-digited male who came into the alcove a short while later was none other than Jake Sully. "Welcome back," he said. "We thought you were lost last night."

Devon managed a smile. "You are _olo'eyktan_?"

"I am."

"Thank you for your hospitality."

Jake nodded. "I wouldn't do otherwise." He knelt beside him as Mo'at returned with a younger female in tow who, wearing much less formal attire, carried a woven tray of assorted plants, foods, and crude tools. "Mo'at has told me that you have a memory problem."

"She said it could be that my blood has been poisoned by the jungle."

"It could be," Jake replied. "Sometimes, though, there are things we just choose to not remember."

Devon looked for any hints in Jake's expression that his cover might already been blown. Had he slipped into English in his delirium? "What are you suggesting, _olo'eyktan_?"

Jake put his hands up. "I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just not convinced that you've forgotten yourself."

"Forgive me, friend," Devon began. Jake's expression changed from skeptical to receptive, perhaps expecting a surprise revelation. "My eyes are still weak, but your hands look very strange to me."

Jake smiled, lowered his head and chuckled. "Well, stranger, that's what I choose to forget." Jake patted him on the shoulder before he stood. "I am sending messengers to the nearby clans to ask if any are missing a warrior. We'll find your home; and when you are healed, we will send you on your way."

Devon nodded. "Thank you."

Jake turned and spoke to Mo'at before he left. "Keep seeing to his care, mother. Let me know how he progresses."

She turned to Tseyo. "You have finished your watch for the night," she said. "I will call you when you are needed again."

Tseyo nodded to Devon before he left. "I will see you again, friend."

"Thank you for watching over me."

Mo'at turned to the young female beside her. "See to his care, Mehi'a. Summon me if you have problems."

Mehi'a subtly bowed. "I will, mother." Mo'at left, and she knelt beside Devon. "It must be strange to have no memory," she said as she set out the items on her tray.

"I can remember things," he replied. "But I do not know what they are."

"Very strange." She helped him sit up against the alcove's wall, minding his broken arm, and then placed a small tray of food on his lap. "Eat while I check your bandages."

He looked at the platter of seeds, fruit, and small pieces of meat before him. Figuring the Na'vi were not going to poison him at this point, he randomly chose a piece of fruit. As soon as he bit into it, his senses went into a whirl. After years of dehydrated, packaged food on the ISV, and a life of chemically engineered foods on Earth, he had no idea how to register the flavor of the fruit he had just consumed. His reaction must have been dramatic, as Mehi'a looked at him quizzically. "Is something wrong?"

"No!" he said emphatically, taking her aback. He chuckled and said, "No, friend, it just tastes very good after a long time being sick."

She smiled. "It would be very sad if you had forgotten the taste of _utu mauti_."

Devon had to pause to recall the notes he studied and recognized the name as a one of the Na'vi's delicacies. "You climbed through the canopies to harvest fruit just for me?" he asked with a grin.

"Do not get carried away, stranger," she said with a laugh. "You were very weak. I thought a treat would help your spirits."

"It has."

She smiled. "Besides, I kept some for myself." He chuckled and turned his attention back to the food while she continued her inspection.

She unwrapped the twine about his head, and he felt a sting as his laceration was exposed to the open air. "This has not healed as well as I would have expected," Mehi'a said with a sigh. "Unfortunately, friend, I will have to make it hurt some more."

As Mehi'a tended to a mixing bowl, pouring together water and another viscous substance, Devon again thought back to his notes. "_Txumpaywll_ sap?"

She nodded. "Your wound is still very infected." Mehi'a dipped a fresh cloth into the slightly diluted sap. She offered him a smile, placed a hand on his cheek, and said, "This will hurt very much."

Mehi'a was not lying. When she applied the medicated cloth to his wound – even gently to start – it felt like she had used pure lye. The burning he felt was immense and all-consuming. It took all his will to not scream, taking quick, deep breaths as he suffered through the pain. She held the cloth against the laceration for what felt like a torturous number of minutes, and he was relieved when she withdrew it and applied a fresh, non-medicated cloth.

She set about treating the rest of Devon's wounds with mercifully less excruciating medicines for the better part of an hour, and managed to reset the splint on his arm without much pain inflicted.

Throughout the treatment, Mehi'a said little to him as he enjoyed the fresh food she had provided. He devoured it well before she finished.

When she was done, she summoned another Na'vi to carry away the medical implements and his empty tray. She then sat cross-legged beside him. He raised his brow and asked, "Are you going to sit there all day?"

"I am charged with keeping you well," she replied with a nod. "If I am needed elsewhere, I will wait for Mo'at to send another healer to watch over you."

"So you will just sit there and stare?"

She smiled. "We could talk, stranger."

Devon had been anesthetized during the treatment of his battle wounds, but he remembered the last time he was in a civilian hospital. He was on the tram home from college when it derailed, killing most of the passengers and leaving the rest, including him, more than a little banged up. In that hospital, machines were left to take care of most of the actual application of care; carefully rationed, over-processed food was wheeled in by dispassionate nurses; and the doctors would come in and out of the room with minimal conversation. The care Devon was receiving now was reserved on Earth only for the wealthiest of patients.

He recalled from his studies that the Na'vi practiced an inclusive culture, but he had not expected it to trickle down to this level. He quietly accepted that he would not be left alone, but he made one last attempt. "I do not know how well you can talk with someone who has no memories," he said with a nervous chuckle.

"Perhaps if we talk, you will remember things."

He nodded. "Tell me about you, and your people," he said with a smile. "Perhaps you will remind me of those who I know."

* * *

Jake walked out onto the upper branch of his Hometree's crown with the visiting _olo'eyktan_ and her warrior escorts. "I'm sorry if I gave you false hope," he said.

She waved him off. "If an unknown warrior stumbled into my clan," she replied, "I would send messengers far and wide – like you did. I would think that if you were missing one of your warriors and received my call, you would be just as quick to see the warrior as I was." She and her charges called for their respective _ikrans_, who moments later emerged from the tree's thick canopy.

"I hope you find him waiting for you when you get home," Jake said.

She nodded before she deftly took to her mount. "I do, too. Thank you again for your hospitality." With a cry, she and her band were off.

Neytiri came to his side. "That is the third clan we have hosted to visit our stranger," she said. "I cannot imagine there are any more nearby who are have missing warriors who could have survived long enough to come here."

Jake sighed. "You're right. We should call off the search."

"I remember what you asked me when he first arrived: if he had been cast out."

"Is that what you think?"

She shrugged. "If he were expelled for crimes, he would not want to talk about it. It is very shameful."

"And no clan would consider him missing," Jake added. He shook his head as he weighed his options. "I can't simply raise a criminal as one of our own people."

"Mother's healers have said that he is very friendly, even though his memory stumbles," she said.

Jake chuckled. "Or as he pretends to have his memory stumble."

Neytiri shook her head at his commentary. "What I am saying, my Jake, is that perhaps we should give him a fresh start in our home. Put him through trials, and let him earn acceptance among our people – as you did."

He sighed. "It seems like every day is a trial to earn acceptance." Despite more than a decade living as one of the Omaticaya, almost as many years as their leader, Jake still encountered resistance to his orders. Some of it came from younger warriors with unrealistic ambitions, but an uncomfortable level came from long-time warriors who had resisted his adoption into the clan.

She took his hands in hers. "You cannot worry about them all the time, Jake. Tsu'Tey had many friends, and their grief is still very strong. He accepted you as his brother; if they are too grieved to do the same, that is not something you can decide."

"There's grieving," he said, "and then there's being stubborn for its own sake."

"The young ones trust you. The elders obey our customs and follow you. Those who do neither are too few to worry about." She sighed and lowered her head. "Even my father was not accepted by all the people."

Neytiri rarely spoke about her father. Jake wondered if she still blamed him in part for his death, but he had no desire to raise the subject. In the same vein, he decided not to push further on any squabbles the late patriarch wrangled with.

He might have carried on the argument and spoken more about the need to be a unified clan for when RDA returned, but with the invocation of Eytukan, he simply accepted her point. He placed his hands on her cheeks and kissed her on her forehead. "Thank you. I couldn't do this without you."

She gave him a broad, tooth-filled smile. "I know."

They descended the honeycomb-like interior of the young Hometree, and the two walked past the thin partition into the quarantined alcove. Tseyo was on call, tending to the stranger. "I have decided to call off our messengers," he said to the wounded Na'vi. "It would seem that you are a stranger not just to us, but to all the clans."

The stranger looked disappointed. "I do not know how to feel about that."

Jake looked at Tseyo. "How is he?"

"Very good, _olo'eyktan_," he replied. "Most of his small wounds have healed, and the jungle rot has been stopped. The wound on his head is beginning to heal. He only has his arm to worry about…"

"The pain is much less, though," the stranger interjected. "I should think in a night or two, it will not bother me at all."

"Very well," Jake replied. "This is not your home, stranger, but I won't cast you back out into the jungle. Tseyo, is there an open hammock near yours?"

He nodded. "Atané left it to share Tx'kina's hammock."

"Then our guest will take it." He leaned out of the partition and called out, "Nakllte!" Jake's senior warrior, and an elder to him, entered the alcove.

"Tomorrow," Jake said to the stranger, "you will undertake the warrior trials under Nakllte's guidance. Complete them to his satisfaction, and you may call our clan your home."

The stranger nodded. Jake was about to leave when Nakllte spoke up. "I will not call him 'stranger' endlessly," he said. He looked to Neytiri. "_Tsahik_, would you please give him a name befitting our people?"

Neytiri nodded and went to kneel by the stranger's side. "I do not know your mother," she said. "I do not know your father. I do not know what happened when you were born. You know none of these things either." She ran the back of her hand over his body. "Nothing distinguishes you from any other of the people."

She stood. "_Oel ke'uti omum_." She paused, nodded, and said, "Mu'kuti."

"'Know Nothing?'" the stranger – Mu'kuti – asked with some trepidation in his voice.

"If your memory comes back," she said as she crossed her arms, "I will reconsider." Neytiri gave a wry grin. "Otherwise, your _tsahik_ has decided."

* * *

Devon feigned sleep until he was certain the Na'vi nearby were genuinely asleep – and there were more than a few to be aware of! On all sides, above and below, Na'vi were curled up in hammocks in singles, pairs, or small families. Were the Na'vi not so obviously content, this would strike Devon as the same arrangement as any miserable slum on Earth. In this context, however, it was an inclusive culture unlike anything Devon had experienced.

His own hammock was barely able to fit his body. He assumed that Atané, its previous occupant, must be among the shorter females in the clan.

He rolled over on his side and carefully brought his hand back to his ear. It had been well over a week since he had the chance to report in. "_Cybele_," he whispered. "_Cybele_, are you there?"

Silence. He figured they had assumed that he was asleep at this hour. Per his instructions, he left a simple message for the crew to translate when they checked the communication logs in the morning.

"I am home."

* * *

As soon as _Cybele_'s sensors detected the wormhole had opened, Abe patched in. "This is the _Cybele_, is anybody on the other end?"

"Abe? It's Jim," Chairman Savage replied. "How're you doing up there?"

"We're doing well, sir. I have the rest of the team here with me, who's there on your end?"

"Just me, David and Tom. Let's get right to it, what've you learned so far?"

"Not too much, yet," Abe said. "About a week ago, our inside man made contact to say that he's successfully infiltrated the Na'vi. However, they're putting him through the paces, and we haven't heard from him in a few days." He paused. "Jake Sully is definitely in command, though."

Amy spoke up. "Sir, it's Colonel Hall. We tracked the Na'vi communications and movements once Devon went in. They have a much more sophisticated network than the previous research teams established. We detected numerous banshee flights from the Omaticaya to outlying clans throughout the western continent."

"What does that mean to me?" the chairman asked impatiently.

"It means we're not going to have any kind of element of surprise," she said. "The moment we're spotted by the Na'vi on the surface – which will probably happen within a few hours – the whole continent will know about it within a couple of days. If they decide to wipe us out, we won't see it coming."

"The same goes for the crews on the ships you're sending in after us," Abe added for emphasis.

"On that point," the chairman said, not even hinting at any concern for the team's potential annihilation, "we modified your plans a bit, Abe."

Abe paused. "How so?"

"The first ISV is coming with your offensive hardware." Before Abe could inquire, the chairman continued. "There was a truce in Ecuador about a week after you left. We were able to pull out our hardware and meet your requirements ahead of the mining ISV. Besides, given your discovery, I think you will agree that achieving security has become your first priority."

"Sir, the point of having the mining ISV come first was to establish a logistical base to support offensive operations." Abe looked at Kim. "Can you give your report?"

She nodded. "Mister Chairman, this is Kim Green. Hell's Gate, from what we can see, is a near total loss. The jungle took it over much faster and much more completely than we had anticipated."

"Aren't the people who stayed taking care of it?" the chairman asked. "Or did the natives get rid of them?"

"They've retreated into a much smaller perimeter," Kim said. "Anything outside of their base, which is just about everything we would consider essential, has been overgrown."

"In other words," Abe interjected, "we're going to have two-hundred security personnel who are effectively stranded." He paused. "How far away are the ships?"

"The security team is ten months away, the mining team is eleven," Tom said.

"Adapt, Abe," the chairman said sternly. "Use the soldiers for construction. They can hold on for a month."

Abe did not bother to point out that using the soldiers as a construction team would minimize their effectiveness – indeed, their purpose – as an offensive unit. "We'll work it out," he replied.

"Getting back to Hell's Gate," Kim said, "based on our orbital scans, it looks like it will take a solid two years to get it back to operational status. Of course, that assumes the complex has sustained additional, internal damage that we can't detect from orbit. We won't know until we're on the ground."

"When are you going down there?" the chairman asked.

"There's a storm system over Hell's Gate," Abe said. "It won't clear out for another two days. The light shuttle we have onboard doesn't have enough strength to punch through it."

"Okay," the chairman replied. "Abe, it sounds like you have things under control so far. You and I and everyone else knows, though, that what happens when you get down there will be anybody's guess. Tom, when's the next time we're going to be able to open up communications?"

"Three weeks again," Tom replied.

"Next time, I'll have our department heads here," the chairman said. "I look forward to your report from the surface."

"Here's hoping it's good news," Abe replied.

"Earth, out." The link went silent.

Abe did not hesitate to address the others. "Okay, team, we have work to do before we go down. Before anything else, I want every scrap of evidence of Devon's infiltration jettisoned, namely the amniotic tank and any food rations he didn't eat. Hide the carts in their cargo containers under spare parts."

"What about his body?" Parker asked. "Are we dumping that, too?"

"No. If they ask, we'll say he came out of cryo too soon." He turned to Dawn. "Can you modify the ship's logs to support that?" She nodded.

"Tell us again how, exactly, you expect them to board us and find any of this out?" Matt asked.

"I expect it will have something to do with them stealing our shuttle," Abe said.

* * *

"Norm!" he heard Max shouting through the corridors. "Norm! Where are you?!"

He stepped out of his quarters. "What's going on, Max?"

"Our comms have been scrambled," a breathless Max said. "Laura detected a reactivation of the orbital network, and right after that, she got locked out."

"Show me," Norm said without hesitation, and they sprinted off towards the command center. Sure enough, all their attempts to log in to the satellite network were ineffective. "What about our surface communications? Can we at least get through to Jake?"

"Locked," Laura said. "We've only got localized communications."

"Shit." He stopped to get his thoughts straight. If RDA could return to Pandora months ahead of schedule, what other hardware were they packing? "Okay, if they're scanning us from orbit, they know there's only one place to land a Valkyrie – and we've got that surrounded by turrets. Get everyone to their stations, this is what we've been expecting."

Laura activated the alarm system. It had not sounded in eleven years, but it was as sharp as ever. Norm and most of the avatar team donned their exopacks, grabbed rifles and made for the turrets. A few others herded the children to panic rooms.

Norm took his station on one of the light turrets they had mounted on the habmod's roof. Minutes passed, and he considered calling off the alert when the small radar scope on his turret displayed a target signature. "I've got incoming!"

"I've got it, too," Max, stationed on one of the heavy turrets, said over the radio. "Its signature is way too small for a Valkyrie."

"I've got a transponder hit," Laura said from the command center. "It's a scout shuttle. No more than eight people, no heavy gear." Seconds later, the craft came into view.

"Should we ice it?" Max asked.

"No," Norm replied, although his fingers were a hair away from hammering down on his turret's trigger. "They can't be dumb enough to be hostile, not in a ship like that." He watched the shuttle make a large circle over the base to bleed off its speed. "I'm going to the field. Cover me, guys."

Norm grabbed his rifle and went back into the habmod to pick up a sidearm. He exited onto the much-overgrown tarmac just as the shuttle landed. "If they shoot me, open fire," he said into his radio as he cautiously approached the craft with his rifle raised.

The engines quit as Norm reached the front of the shuttle. He could make out the pilot and co-pilot, both already donning exopacks; and by the looks on their faces, they undoubtedly made out his gun. He motioned for them to put their hands up, and they complied. He pointed at the craft's cargo door, and the pilot cautiously reached for his panel. The door opened, and Norm was relieved when a squad of Marines failed to disembark.

He shouldered his rifle and withdrew his sidearm as he boarded the craft. He held the gun to the pilot's neck. "Out!" he barked. He put a hand firmly on the co-pilot's shoulder. "You stay where you are for now."

"Relax, man!" the pilot said. "We don't have guns."

"Well I do," Norm said. "Get up and get out, and lie face-down when you're outside." He activated his radio. "We have two onboard, and one's coming out. If he doesn't get on his face the second he's off the shuttle, light him up."

"Goddamn, dude," the pilot said as he got out of his chair. "You don't need to do me like that."

Once the pilot was off the ship and, as ordered, had laid face-down, he turned his gun on the co-pilot and issued the same instructions.

With the shuttle's crew aggressively disembarked, Norm called out another one of the avatar team members to help escort them to the detention facility. He noted that while the pilot wore a standard RDA flight suit, the co-pilot was in business attire. Once the two were locked away, Norm holstered his sidearm. He looked at the pilot and asked, "How many more of you are coming down?"

"It's just us, man," he said. "Fucking relax."

"Like I believe RDA sent two people to recover their base."

"What he means," the co-pilot said, "is that nobody else is coming down."

"I wasn't talking to you."

"You should," he replied, "because I'm the one in charge."

"Hey, you're not in charge of anything right now," Norm said. "Not until you give me some answers."

Abe sighed. "My name is Abe Scheller, and this is Miguel Lopez. We're from the crew of the _Cybele_, a lawfully registered and flagged _civilian_ space-faring vessel."

Norm raised an eyebrow. "Did you just accuse me of piracy?"

"You did just take unarmed civilians hostage at gunpoint," Abe said. "Anyway, there are seven more of my crew in orbit, and they don't have enough rations to sustain themselves for more than a few days. So if you don't let them come to the surface, you will contribute to the starvation and deaths of seven people. Do you want that?"

"Why don't I just let you go back up so you can fire up your engines and get back to Earth?"

Abe shook his head. "Because if the ISV fleet arrives and we're not in communication, the next RDA ships to come out of orbit will make very, very forceful landings."

Norm paused. "So you are bringing an army back."

"Did you expect anything else?" Abe sighed. "What's your name?"

"Norm Spellman."

"Norm, I'm prepared to be one-hundred percent honest with you, but I will not do it under duress; and by duress, I mean in confinement with my crew effectively held hostage in orbit. Now, it's your call what happens from here, but I'm not opening my mouth again until I have some assurances about my safety and the safety of my crew."

He was silent while he weighed his options, but he could see the cold determination in Abe's face. He looked at his teammate. "Stay here and guard them. I'm going to gather the others to talk about this."

* * *

While Miguel sat on one of the benches, Abe leaned against the cell's back wall. Norm and a handful of others approached the cell after about an hour from Norm's departure. "We have demands before we let you out of here," Norm said.

Abe paused. "I'm listening."

"First, we want our communications back." Abe nodded. "Second, one of us goes up with you to disembark your crew." Abe nodded again. "Third, you guys don't have the right to carry guns once you're here."

Abe snorted. "Not much of a Second Amendment guy, are you?" he said.

"Last," Norm said without acknowledging Abe's quip, "any time you send a message to Earth, one of us has to be with you."

"And how would you enforce that?" he asked.

"I'm going to post a guard at the command center," Norm said. "And if one of your guys approaches without an escort, we'll shoot to kill."

Abe hesitated as he pondered the last condition. A few moments later, he sighed. "Deal."

Minutes later, Norm, gun at the ready, was onboard the shuttle as Miguel flew towards the _Cybele_. Miguel activated the radio, "_Cybele_, Shuttle One coming in to dock."

"Roger," Dawn replied. "We'll assemble in the loading dock."

"Dawn," Abe said, "we've got one of the Hell's Gate team onboard. He's going to do a once-over of the ship before he'll let you all disembark."

"Copy that, Boss."

"Tell them to open up our communications access," Norm insisted.

Abe sighed. "Also, Dawn, revert to the old access codes for the commlinks."

"Okay," she replied after a pause. "It's done."

Less than a minute later, the shuttle docked with the _Cybele_, and the airlock opened. Norm indicated with his gun to have Abe and Miguel exit ahead of him, to which they obliged. The team had assembled in the loading dock, but it took all of a half second for Norm to pick one of them out. "No fucking way am I letting that piece of shit down there!" Norm said, pointing at Parker.

"It's good to see you too," Parker replied. "It's been eleven years. Have you managed to score your own piece of tail by now?"

Norm charged forward and punched Parker squarely in the jaw, sending him flying backwards and onto his back. The rest of the team made for Norm, but he held his gun out. "Back off!" he shouted. They obliged.

Parker got up to return the punch, and the two launched into a full-on boxing match.

"Break it up!" Abe demanded, and his team quickly separated the two combatants.

"There is no goddamned way I am letting him off your ship," Norm said.

"You will," Abe insisted. "You will because we have a deal."

"If I had known you had him with you…"

"Norm," Abe interrupted, keeping his voice calm while Norm became more agitated. "I need him here to walk me through what happened under his watch."

"I'll tell you what happened!" Norm shouted. "He let Quaritch and your corporate mercenaries go nuts on the Na'vi. He blew up their homes, gunned them down, and was going to strip mine the whole planet – all on RDA's orders."

"I tried to be diplomatic long before you showed up, shit head," Parker said. "What the fuck do you know about anything I had to do?"

Abe held up a hand to Parker to silence him, keeping his focus squarely on Norm. "When RDA comes back in force – and we are – do you want the new team to make the same mistakes?" he replied.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know RDA has become the company that cares," Norm said.

"I promised you I would talk about this further," Abe continued. "But right now, I need you to know that I need Parker with me on the surface." Norm looked unconvinced. "Remember what I said? I'm in charge of this team. Whatever Parker's done, he can't do it again, because he's not calling the shots."

Norm took a deep breath before he spoke again. He looked at Parker and said, "You're not going to last a month."

"Are you threatening me?" Parker looked at Abe. "Are you just going to let him threaten me like that?"

"Nothing's going to happen to you, Parker, because despite his present emotional state, Norm is a reasonable guy. Right, Norm?"

Norm just stared at him for a few moments. "Get your team on the shuttle," he ordered, "and walk me through the other surprises you have onboard."

Abe walked Norm through the ship while his team waited on the shuttle. When they approached the cryobay, Norm checked the monitors. "Why do you have one person still in cryosleep?"

"There was a computer malfunction. His pod activated too soon, and irregularly," Abe replied. "We're keeping him in cryo until we return to Earth for treatment – unless you have a fully operational hospital down there."

Norm pulled up Devon's vitals from a nearby terminal. "Jesus, he's fried. I didn't know coming out of cryo could do this."

"His brain was oxygen starved when the sequence failed," Abe said. "Fortunately it happened only a few hours before the rest of us woke up so we could catch it. Otherwise, he'd be dead."

Norm shook his head. "Yeah, we can't help him."

The inspection went on for most of an hour before Norm expressed his satisfaction that there were no more surprises in store for the people on the surface. He and Abe joined the rest of the team in the shuttle and made their descent to Pandora.


	8. Meeting

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

In the old Hell's Kitchen, Abe and his team sat at one table, while Norm and the avatar team, minus the children, sat opposite them at another table. Neither party was eager to be the first to speak up, but Abe took a deep breath and began the conversation.

"I suppose I should congratulate you for surviving so long," he said. "It couldn't have been easy."

"It wasn't always," Norm said with his arms crossed.

"But you still managed to find the time to prepare for our arrival." Abe gave a sideways smile. "I hope we haven't disappointed you."

"We were expecting a little more firepower."

Abe nodded. "Well, they're on their way." Before Norm and the others could react, Abe leaned forward and continued. "Clearly you don't want us here, but the fact of the matter is that we are here; and you knew we were coming. Now, we have our orders to get this base back up to operational status – or close-enough to – before the main team arrives, and that's what we're going to do."

Norm let out a short laugh and leaned back. "Do you seriously think we're going to help you?"

He shook his head. "And I didn't ask you to, did I?"

"Maybe we won't sit back and just let you do it, either," Max offered.

Abe raised his eyebrows. "That is a dilemma, now isn't it? You guys have the guns, the numbers, and the trust of the Na'vi—" he paused. "By the way, is Corporal Sully here? I would think he would want…"

"How do you know about Jake?" Norm interrupted. Abe simply nodded at Parker. Norm clenched his jaw and then continued. "He's not here."

"So he's linked up?"

"No, he's not here," Norm repeated. "He's with the Na'vi."

Abe raised an eyebrow. "Really? How is he – nevermind. I assume that's why you were eager to get your communications access back." Norm nodded. "When we're done here, I'd like to get in touch with him."

"We'll see about it."

"Getting back on topic," Abe said, "we have a dilemma. You hold the keys to the kingdom, but we're the king's soldiers – so to speak. It's more like a Mexican standoff, really."

"No, you don't have any weapons," Max said.

Abe raised a finger. "Not now. But as I said, they heavy equipment is coming; and as I told Norm earlier, if they don't hear from me when they arrive, they're going to come in guns blazing." He held his hands out. "I don't think you want that. I don't, either."

Norm snorted. "I believe that."

Abe sighed. "Listen, it's no secret why RDA sent us here. If I told you any differently, you would know I was lying, right?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Okay. And am I right to assume the Na'vi also have no illusions about our return?"

Norm nodded slowly. "Yeah, you're right."

Abe leaned back. "I'm a big fan of American history," he said. "People back home keep drawing parallels to the English conquest of North America, but we're really recreating the Spanish model: maintaining the first, permanent contacts with indigenous people, and deploying overwhelmingly superior technology in the search for wealth." He chuckled, "And all in the jungle."

"You really want to compare yourself to the conquistadors?" Max asked incredulously.

"No," Abe said. "I want to learn from them. They spent so much time and effort knocking off the Aztecs and Inca, their expeditions became increasingly inefficient. If it weren't for the waves of colonists coming in behind them to maintain the industrial base, the whole expedition could well have been a bust. And as the Spanish Empire extended its cruelties into North America, those natives became predisposed to attacking American colonists on their westward drive."

He looked around the table and saw that he was not winning anybody over on his history lesson. He sighed. "The point is that a lot of people died needlessly, their objectives of finding wealth were slowed down by diverting resources, and it took most of four-hundred years of guerilla warfare before the American natives were finally pacified."

He leaned forward. "We don't have the benefit of waves of colonists coming in behind us, and we don't have the resources to fight a war at the same time that we march off in search of energy deposits. And we sure as hell don't have four-hundred years to pull it off," he said with a chuckle. "Earth will be dead and gone if we don't get this business settled before then.

"My objective," he continued, "is to get this operation up and running _efficiently_, and I am of the opinion that waging war will not accomplish that objective."

Abe nodded at Max. "You are right in that, for now, we don't have the arms to back up our side of the standoff. The reason why I've listed our shortfalls is to emphasize that the power to decide the fate of this world is in _your_ hands, not mine. You don't have to help us, but think very carefully about the consequences of standing in our way."

The silence lingered on for a minute until Norm sighed and broke it. "So let's say we don't stand in your way," he offered. "What happens to us?"

"Well, RDA certainly does _not_ recognize the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of the Renegades of Pandora," Abe replied with a laugh. "Once the first ISV is in orbit, you will be shuttled off of Pandora and sent home. Whether or not you go back as prisoners or willfully is, again, up to you."

The avatar team, in uncoordinated shouting, demanded to know what laws they had broken to ever be considered "prisoners." Abe held up his hands to regain control of the conversation.

"The story back home," he casually informed them, "is that there was an industrial accident up here and, regrettably, you did not make it out in time."

They shouted again, cursing him for their untimely, fabricated deaths. Again, he held up his hands, although it took longer for them to be quieted.

"How happy would it be for your families back home, then, to know that you've survived; and to also know that RDA will _not_ seek to recover the generous compensation packages that they received for your wrongful deaths." He paused to let that last bit of information sink in.

He held out his hands. "On the other hand, more than a few people have raised the possibility of sabotage as the cause of this alleged accident. It would be terrible if our investigations here substantiated that, and further concluded that you all had survived not by any luck of circumstance, but by your own designs." He paused. "And, of course, RDA has no desire to compensate the families of those who are neither dead nor innocent in the deaths of others and the destruction of its property; and I'm sure your families are fully able to return RDA's money."

"We'll go public," Norm said. "We'll tell everybody about what really happened here." The rest of the avatar team voiced their support for doing so.

Abe nodded. "And I'm sure some people will believe you." He shrugged and added, "Hell, maybe most people will believe you – people like to hate corporations and cheer for the underdogs. But it's also well established that prolonged isolation in hostile environments can have deep, psychological consequences. It's not impossible that a skilled lawyer, or team of lawyers, could persuade people that the crushing guilt you felt for isolating yourselves would cause you to create a kind of alternate reality to help deal with your circumstances."

Norm shook his head. "You son of a bitch."

Abe shrugged. "Like I said, what happens next is your call."

* * *

Parker was the last of the team to carry his belongings into the sleeping quarters Norm and his renegades set aside for them. Abe was already gathering the team together for an impromptu meeting, but Parker was not in the mood to have the agenda dictated to him.

He shut the door behind him and then approached Abe. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You just told them our whole plan, and they're going to tell Jake!"

Abe crossed his arms. "I didn't tell them anything they wouldn't have figured out on their own – if they haven't already," he said flatly. "Remember, they're all eggheads. Give them some credit."

"In case you haven't forgotten, there are a bunch of savages out there who probably _didn't_ figure it out; but now they're going to know everything."

"When the colonists first made contact…"

"I don't want another fucking history lesson!" Parker shouted. "This isn't some chance for you to make up for shit that happened five-hundred years ago. We need to establish control right here, right now."

Abe raised his eyebrows. "You don't think I'm in control?"

"Not really." He paused to think his answer through. "No, you aren't. You're caving in to their demands, and they're going to slow down this whole operation."

"Does anybody else agree with Parker?" Abe asked as he looked around the group. Parker had hoped to see the others nod their heads at the least; instead, they stood resolutely still and silent. "Given the state of politics on Earth," Abe continued, "I assume that I don't need to talk to you about asymmetrical warfare; but Amy, would you please explain to Parker the concept of vertical envelopment?"

She nodded and looked at him. "The objective is to land a force behind or among an enemy position to disrupt its routes of supply and reinforcement, conduct forced reconnaissance ahead of the main force and, where possible, attack the enemy at its weakest points."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel, for that," Parker said. "But thanks to Mister Scheller, we don't have any guns to launch any kind of attack."

"Let's say we did it your way, Parker," Abe replied. "Let's say we came down here with guns blazing and didn't get shot down by the turrets. What makes you think that Norm doesn't have the same arrangement with Jake and the Na'vi that we have with our security force? What makes you think that if Norm stopped answering the radio, that the Na'vi wouldn't swoop in and wipe us out in kind?"

"I didn't say 'guns blazing,'" Parker said. "But you're giving them all the advantages so that whenever they do decide to get rid of us, they can do it quickly."

"Parker, we may be outnumbered as much as ten-thousand to one," Abe said, his tone of voice suggesting that his patience was wearing thin. "There's no point in pretending that they don't have all the advantages. If we instigate violence here, if we play into their strengths and force them to wipe us out, then we're going to turn Pandora into another piece of shit Third World country on Earth where everybody's fighting over critical resources that they're too busy dying to harvest. Is that what you want to do, Parker?"

"That doesn't mean we should pretend that they aren't gearing up to fight us," Parker replied.

He sighed. "Have you ever gotten into a fight with someone bigger than you?"

"Not that I can remember." His jaw began to hurt again.

"The most effective way to fight someone who's bigger than you is to let them throw their weight around and use it against them." Abe took a deep breath. "Now, unless anybody else wants to talk about our grand strategy, I'd like to move on to our immediate concerns."

Much to Parker's dismay, nobody said anything.

Abe nodded. "Okay. First, we obviously can't let them dictate when and how we communicate with Earth. Scott, Kim, and Dawn, can you create a remote terminal that we can use to patch in to the main communications center?"

The three looked at each other in silent conference, and eventually Dawn spoke up. "Probably, but they'd be able to listen in."

"About a year after I got here," Parker said, "an electrical storm wiped out the first communications center. We didn't have enough spare parts to fix the whole thing, but we were able to build a back-up center in the refinery's administration module until the right equipment arrived to fix the main one."

"It's probably been overgrown with the rest of the refinery," Scott said. "But if it's salvageable, we could probably use it to bypass these guys' system."

"Yeah, but if we don't use the main center," Jose said, "they're going to know something's up."

"We'll send bogus messages from the main center with the optical relay," Abe replied. "Nobody's told them about Tom's wormholes, have they?" he asked with a grin. They variously shook their heads and chuckled. He nodded. "Keep it that way. In the meantime, I'm going to make surveying the refinery our first priority, up there with getting a remote communications terminal up and running – I'm sure the chairman will want to hear about it first, anyway."

"We'll work it out," Kim replied.

Abe nodded. "The rest of you will support them as best you can until I direct you otherwise." He stepped away from the group and towards the door. "Get your things unpacked in the meantime. I'm going to go see about meeting Jake." He stopped at Parker's side and looked him squarely in the eye. "What can you tell me about him?"

He thought about the array of adjectives he wanted to use, but Parker settled on one in particular. "He's stubborn."

Abe smiled, let out a short laugh and headed for the door. "By the way," he said over his shoulder before he exited. "Do any of you actually know anything about the conquistadors?"

They stood there in silence, like schoolchildren asked a left-field question by their teacher.

"They didn't go broke fighting the natives," he said. "They got the natives to fight each other."

* * *

"_Olo'eyktan_!" a warrior called out as he ran towards Jake. "Your Sky People are asking for you. They say it is very urgent."

Jake's personal communicator had died years earlier. In its place, Norm and his team scavenged field-operations radio equipment used by RDA's mercenaries. As RDA's arrival was expected within a matter of months, Jake left it running in one of the young Hometree's alcoves and had a team of his younger warriors take shifts monitoring it.

Jake hurried back to the alcove. One of his warriors was already holding the receiver out for him. He did not hesitate to take it. "Jake here, what's up?"

"They're here," Norm replied.

He did not have to ask for an explanation. Jake took in a deep breath before he responded. "They're a little ahead of schedule, aren't they?"

"By a couple of months, yeah."

"How many?"

"Nine. They're just an advance team, so more are on the way." Before he could reply, Norm continued. "Their leader wants to meet you."

He was taken aback. "What? Why?"

A new voice came over the radio. "Jake? My name is Abe Scheller. As Norm said, I'm the leader of RDA's team here."

"I don't suppose I can convince you to go back to your ship and turn around?"

Abe laughed. "No, Jake, you can't. Sorry. He is right, though. I would like to meet you."

Jake hesitated. "Are you two in the same room, or just sharing the same channel?"

"Same room," Abe replied.

"Leave. I want to talk to Norm alone."

There was a long pause before Norm came back on the radio. "He's gone."

"Are you all safe?"

"We're fine, Jake," Norm replied. Jake imagined that Abe was simply standing behind Norm with a gun while another RDA crony held up cue cards. Norm must have caught on, because he followed up and said, "Honestly. We've got them outgunned and playing by our rules – at least for the time being."

For a second time, Jake was surprised. "How did you manage that?"

"That guy, Abe, was smart enough to know not to come in swinging," Norm said with a chuckle. "He's submissive for now, but he's still one of RDA's guys; so we're keeping him and his team under close watch." Norm sighed. "They brought Parker back, Jake."

"What?!" he asked – almost shouted – incredulously. "I can't believe they let him keep his job."

"Well, I don't know about his job, per se. He's clinging to the bottom of the food chain in this team, but he's still a player."

Jake paused to digest the information so far. "If I come, do you smell an ambush?"

"We'll keep the environment controlled," Norm replied. "They won't have any chance to get a jump on you."

He paused again. "Okay," he said. "Tell Abe I'll be there in three days."

As promised, Jake arrived at Hell's Gate three days later – along with Neytiri and four of his most trusted _ikran makto_. Whereas Neytiri insisted on bringing the ceremonial bow of the Omaticaya as her weapon, Jake and the others rode in with their rifles.

Jake noticed that the avatar team had taken positions at the turrets guarding the reduced perimeter. Once he landed, Norm and Max, armed, emerged from the habmod once with Abe in front of them. Jake and Neytiri dismounted their ikrans and approached the human trio. Jake nodded at Norm and Max as they got close, and the two of them took a few steps back from Abe.

"I hear over and over again that you're ten feet tall," Abe said with a chuckle, "but it's still difficult to prepare for it."

Jake crossed his arms. "I thought over and over again what it would be like when RDA came back," he said flatly, "but it's still difficult to believe you were dumb enough to do it."

"C'mon, Jake," Abe replied with plainer inflection than a moment before. "You know how deep our interests are on Pandora. We were always going to come back – humanity, not just RDA."

"I do know that," Jake said with a nod. "And I've made sure they know it too – all the Na'vi, not just the ones here."

"Well, Jake, that's just what I wanted to talk to you about."

"So talk."

Abe nodded slowly. "What do you see happening?"

"I see your reinforcements coming in and trying the same tricks as a decade ago; and just like a decade ago, I see you getting thrown off of Pandora."

"And after that?" Abe pressed. "Do you think we're just going to give up?"

Jake was about to answer when Neytiri interrupted. "He wastes our time. He is like all Sky People, he will talk but not listen – say one thing, mean another."

"Neytiri, is it?" Abe asked, and she was clearly surprised by him. "I read Doctor Augustine's notes. She spoke highly of you as one of her students – before the school closed, anyway."

"She was my friend," Neytiri said. "You killed her."

"I was on Earth…"

"Your people killed her!" she took an aggressive step forward, and Jake placed a hand on her shoulder to prevent her from becoming too forward. Jake noticed that Abe barely flinched.

"What happened to Doctor Augustine is inexcusable," he replied, "and I am sorry that she died." He sighed. "Neytiri, I'm not a skoun. 'Skoun,' is that how you say it?"

"_Skxawng_," Neytiri corrected, her voice dripping with contempt for him.

"Thank you," he said with a slight nod. "My Na'vi isn't very good. Anyway, I know you don't have any reason to trust me, or even like me. Horrible things happened to you and your people, and I'm sorry for those things."

"Then why would you come back to put them – us – through it again?" Jake asked.

"Jake, how much have you told the Na'vi about Earth?"

"Not much," he admitted. "They don't really care." He noticed that Neytiri gave him a very cross glance at that, but he did his best not to acknowledge it.

"Neytiri," Abe said, "Earth is dying. It's my home, and I want to save it."

Neytiri snorted. "Your people should have known better before it was too late."

"If I could go back in time and stop the problems from ever happening, I would. Most people would." He paused and held out his hands. "But we can't. The mistakes that were made are a part of our lives, now, and we are trying to deal with them the best that we can."

She pointed at him as though she were accusing him of a crime. "You make your problems our problems. The people do not want your problems."

Abe held his hands up defensively. "I don't want to be a problem for you or your people, Neytiri. But at the same time, I can't sit by and watch my own people suffer; not when your world can help."

"You make _us_ suffer, though we did not destroy your world. You will take from us and leave us to suffer!" She looked at Jake again, her eyes revealing the anger that was consuming her. "We learn nothing from him, Jake. We should leave."

She did not wait for him to respond before she walked back to her ikran. Abe called after her, "Do you have children?"

She stopped in midstride. Jake tried to defuse the mounting tension by answering, "Our clan has many children."

Abe looked at him. "I mean you two. Do you two have children of your own?"

Neytiri turned. "That is not your concern!" she said – shouted – angrily. The way she walked back towards Abe was almost a charge, but Jake grabbed her before she could come too close to actually hurt him. "Why do you ask about my family? You want to know about my family? My father was killed by Sky People."

Jake tried to interrupt. "Neytiri…"

She persisted. "My sister was killed by Sky People."

"Neytiri…"

"You want my child? I do not have one for you to kill!"

"Neytiri!" He stepped between her and Abe and placed both hands on her shoulders. He spoke to her, quietly, in Na'vi. "You told me you wanted to come here to listen to what he had to say."

"He has nothing to say," she said, clearly trying to fight back deeper emotions.

"You aren't listening."

"I see what he is," she replied. "He is no different than the ones who came before him."

"Do you see that, or do you just want to believe that?"

Before she answered him, Abe spoke up. "Neytiri?"

Jake looked over his shoulder at Abe. Reverting to English, he said pointedly, "Finish what you were going to say, and then we're leaving."

"What I've been trying to say all along, Jake – Neytiri – is that I didn't come here to repeat mistakes. I didn't ask you to cause you pain. I have a daughter back home, and she's sick."

He snorted. "A sick child? Kind of cliché, don't you think?"

For the first time, Abe responded with something other than a practiced calm. Jake could tell that he had struck a nerve – and, deep down, he took pleasure in it. "Cliché or not," Abe replied pointedly, "it's the truth. And somewhere on this planet, I believe, is a cure for her – and for tens or hundreds of thousands of sick children like her."

Abe regained his calm and spoke quickly before Jake could disengage from the conversation. "I wish you had told them more about Earth, Jake, and more importantly how the people of Earth look at Pandora. This place is hope for them, Neytiri. It's a hope that maybe the future doesn't have to be as miserable as the present; and it's a future I want my daughter to see. When I go home, I want her to know that her happiness did not come from the suffering of others."

Jake motioned that he was about to leave when Abe held up a finger. "I just want to show you one thing, and then you can go."

He looked back at Neytiri, and she nodded. He turned to Abe. "Make it quick."

Abe looked at Max. "Can you go get my duffel bag?" Soon after Max left, Abe said, "For what it's worth, Neytiri, my sister was killed by 'Sky People,' too."

She hesitated and took a deep breath, and then she removed Jake's hands from her shoulders and motioned for him to stand at her side. He cautiously obliged. "How?" she asked.

He crossed his arms. "Some drunk saw her leaving a bar and wouldn't take 'No' for an answer."

Neytiri gave Jake a puzzled look, obviously failing to understand the English idiom. He lightly shook his head, and she did not press him further. "Does it hurt you?" she asked.

Abe nodded. "Every day." He looked at Jake. "And I know about your brother, so I guess that means the three of us have something in common."

Jake snorted. "That's not the greatest thing to go on." Abe just shrugged.

Max returned with Abe's duffel bag. Abe went through it and quickly found what he was looking for. "Like I said, people on Earth look to your world for hope, Neytiri. My daughter especially." He produced a female Na'vi doll. Jake looked at Neytiri, and saw that her expression had hardened; although he could not tell if she was trying to suppress empathy or expression revulsion at the idea of Sky People making toys in the Na'vi likeness.

"This was my daughter's favorite thing in the world," Abe said. He took a breath before continuing. "Her treatments can take a lot out of her, so I guess she found comfort in the protection of a strong warrior. When she heard I was coming here, however, she insisted that I return her Na'vi friend to her people." He looked up from the doll. "I'm not going to go back to her and say that I ruined her friend's home."

Abe held the doll out for Neytiri to take. She hesitated, but she stepped forward and accepted the gift.

"Did your daughter name her friend?" she asked as she ran her fingers over the doll.

"Seze."

Neytiri looked up from the doll. Jake's heart skipped. "I knew Seze," she said, emphasizing each word.

Abe took a deep breath and sighed. "Sky People?"

She walked away from him without acknowledgement and mounted her ikran, tucking the doll under her belt. Jake began to walk away when Abe said, "Jake, we should make time to talk again."

He turned and looked at him, his brow raised. "Would it be any more productive than this was?"

"It's up to you, Jake. Don't make your decisions without exploring all your options."

Jake snorted. "How many options are you giving me, Abe?"

He mounted his ikran, but before he took off, Abe called after him. "Ten months, Jake. The security forces will be here in ten months. We have plenty of time to talk until then, but I don't know what will happen after that."

Jake and the others left without another word.

* * *

Abe walked back into the bunk and dropped his duffel bag at the foot of his bed. "Were you all able to listen in?"

Dawn held up the headset components of an exopack. "The mikes picked it up loud and clear," she said. "Way to _not_ make friends with the woman, Boss."

He sat down on his mattress. "I didn't expect to." He let out a short laugh. "Of course, I also didn't expect that we had gunned down her whole family."

"Yeah, well, she was right about one thing," Parker said. "That was a total waste of time."

Abe shook his head. "Parker, when your girlfriends broke up with you, did they say you were a terrible listener?"

Before Parker could answer, Miguel spoke up. "I have to say, Boss, I'm with him on that one." A few of the others nodded their heads.

Abe sighed. "We learned that they're scared of us – they were all packing serious weaponry, which confirms our suspicions about the crew here providing material support – they hate us, and they don't expect us to do much for them."

"All things that I've been saying for months and months," Parker said.

"Yes, but you had an agenda when you said them. She was being honest." He paused before continuing. "Plus, we learned that even though Jake is the Na'vi leader, Neytiri is clearly the powerbroker-in-chief."

"I'm not sure those are breakthrough discoveries," Amy said.

Abe shook his head. "Maybe not the first two points, not yet. There is still one more thing." He looked at Matthew. "Can you pull everything we know about Na'vi mating and the avatars' genetic construction?"

Matthew chuckled. "I didn't know you swung that way, Boss."

He gave him a crooked smile and replied, "I just as well assumed you would have it all at your fingertips, ready to go."

The rest of the team laughed, and Matthew just smiled and nodded. "Not at my fingertips, Boss, but I'll pull it together."

"I just don't know," Scott said. "It looks to me like they're itching for a fight. I don't see how you're going to talk them out of it – especially that woman."

"Nothing is inevitable," Abe said. "We have more than enough time to turn this around. And if in that time they don't want to cooperate–." He paused to shake his head. "If they don't want to cooperate, then ten months from now, they're going to be the ones wanting a time machine."


	9. Maneuver

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Once again, thank you all for the feedback. I do intend to reply to y'all. Also, greetings to the people finding this through IMDb.

* * *

It was nighttime when Jake, Neytiri , and their accompanying warriors landed on the Hometree's crown branch. They made the trek back from Hell's Gate as quickly as possible, but even then it took the majority of the day. More than once, his escorts suggested that they camp for the night; but Jake was consumed by a sickening feeling that the meeting with Abe was simply a ruse. For the greater part of the flight home, he expected to arrive to find a force of Marines in the mop-up phase of a fight against his clan.

Jake was more than relieved when his fears proved unfounded.

He broke the _tsaheylu_ with his _ikran_, who promptly ascended into the tree's canopy. He turned to his warriors as they dismounted their own beasts. "Don't say anything to your brothers and sisters. I will address the people in the morning."

"I don't trust them," Naw'ngié said with her arms crossed. "They don't want to learn from our world, they want to plunder it." She looked to her companions. "We should not wait for them to grow strong. We should rally the _kunpongu_ and attack them now." The others nodded.

For a moment, Jake entertained the image of his one-hundred machinegun-armed warriors descending on the hapless RDA contingent. He shook his head. "If they wanted to attack us, they would have done it." He sighed. "But you're right. They aren't here to make friends."

"So, do we attack?" she pressed.

"No. If we do, they'll use it as an excuse to fight back."

She grinned and replied, "They can't fight back if they're all dead." The other warriors chuckled.

"Sky People don't come in groups of nine, they come by the hundreds." He turned his head and looked skyward. "Another ship full of their warriors is on its way. We should be ready for a fight, not start it." He looked back at the warriors. "Get some sleep. Again, I'll address the people tomorrow morning."

They exchanged glances – apparently not convinced of his proposed strategy – then casually dispersed. At that moment, Jake noticed Neytiri's absence. He entered the Hometree and descended the honeycombed interior to their shared hammock. She was lying on her side, her head rested on her arm as she delicately studied the Na'vi doll.

Jake took a breath before joining her. He rested a hand on Neytiri's shoulder, at which she laid the doll on the hammock and turned to look at him. She rested her hands on his chest, and he placed his hands over hers.

Neytiri sighed and looked into his eyes. "I did not think I would react like that."

"I was a little surprised," he replied. "Are you okay?"

She looked down. "I think all the time about the Sky People and what they did – what they will do. I should be stronger," she paused and shook her head, "but then I think about my father and sister, and I become sad – then angry."

Jake rested his forehead on hers. "You _are_ strong, Neytiri. You just–" he paused to find the right words. "If you keep things inside for too long, you lose control over when and how they come out."

"I mourned them," she replied quietly. "I know they are one with Eywa, and one day I will be, too." She closed her eyes. "But they did not die – they were taken."

The silence between them lingered for minutes. He thought back to the day that Quaritch and the mercenaries destroyed the Hometree, helped along by the information he had provided. He had come to terms with the fact that they likely would have attacked the tribe without his information, but would that have changed the fate of Neytiri's father? It was a question he would never answer.

Instead, Jake kissed the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry."

Neytiri sighed again and looked up at him. "Jake, there is something that happened today that upset me."

"Tell me."

"When you said that I do not care about your Earth." She furrowed her brow. "I care, Jake, but you hide it from me."

"It's not a part of who I am anymore," he replied with a shake of his head.

"You would not be here without Earth, and then I would never know you. But there is still so much you will not let me see." She softened her expression and placed a hand on his cheek. "Please let me, Jake."

Jake took in a deep breath as he wrestled with Neytiri's plea. He started to look away from her, but she turned his attention back to her. He cupped her outstretched hand, and then slowly moved his hand up the length of her arm. She closed her eyes as he passed over her shoulder, then down her back. Gently, he took hold of her queue as he reached behind his back and took hold of his own.

He hesitated before connecting their queues; but in that moment, Neytiri pressed herself against him, quietly urging him to form the _tsaheylu_. He obliged her.

They both took in sharp breaths once they were intertwined – no matter how many times they formed the bond, each time felt like the first.

Jake closed his eyes as he adjusted to her presence. It was not long before he could feel her exploring him; and despite his inclination to resist, he allowed her to go forward. He revealed his memories of the ever-dark cities of Earth, the squalor of their slums, and the barren landscapes that passed for "nature." He took her with him through his battles in Venezuela and the downtrodden people who could not escape it. He introduced her to the pitiful masters of Creation and the many sorrows their enlightened sciences had wrought.

He felt her trembling and embraced her.

As she had explored him, he pressed her to allow him to be within her. She yielded to his probing with a sigh, and he found himself within her tragedies. Jake was deceived time and time again by empty promises of peace. He was too stunned by his sister's execution to do little more than whimper. He knelt beside his father's body and wailed, overcome with a sadness that was replaced with an unyielding anger brought on by Jake's betrayal.

Neytiri grasped his forearms as she took deep but halted breaths with each push he made.

Jake tried to ease her pain by showing her the world he remembered from his youth. A football game with his brother, a birthday with friends, the first time he took his car to the road away from the oppressive city.

In return, he felt the exhilaration of his first hunt, stumbled on his first attempt to break a _pa'li_, and sat with his sister and friends around the fire pit, enraptured by his father's stories about his ancestor, the fifth _Toruk Makto_.

Neytiri sighed underneath him.

The time that passed was immaterial. Their pasts became a shared present, and they were lost in each other. They met again for the first time. They remade their first _tsaheylu_. They bonded one-hundred times over again.

Jake kissed her and felt the exhilaration of it; Neytiri casually brushed her leg against his and shuddered at the touch. And when they were, at long last, exhausted, their bond broke of its own accord, leaving the two of them breathless in each other's arms.

Neytiri swallowed, brushed her cheek against his – he felt the damp traces of her tears – and whispered in his ear, "I am sorry."

"For what?" he whispered back.

"For hating you."

* * *

The Omaticaya gathered around the rocky mound at the heart of the Hometree. Part altar, part ceremonial stage, the mound was surrounded by ceremonial fire pits at its base, while woven streamers and painted hides hung overhead. Today, however, it served simply as a podium from which Jake addressed the tribe. "The rumors you've heard are true," he said solemnly. "The Sky People are back."

The assembly dissolved into hundreds of conversations – some reserved, some boisterous; some measured, some lively. Their leader raised his hands and tried to order their attention, but it was a shriek – a banshee'scry – by Neytiri, standing at Jake's side, which reclaimed the crowd's attention.

"How many are there?" someone asked. "Are they coming here?"

"There are not many of them – not now. And for the time being, they're staying behind their fences."

"We should go after them," another of the people urged. "We have their weapons, we should destroy them now!" Many shouted their approval, but Mu'kuti took note of the many who were shaking their heads. However, he paid special attention to the few Na'vi who raised guns in support. He wondered if perhaps the _kunpongu_, the seemingly chosen few who wielded human arms, was not the fiercely loyal Praetorian Guard Jake had tried to design.

Jake waited until the din died down before he responded. "If we start the war, there will be no rest for us – or for any Na'vi clan. They will have their excuse to hunt us all down."

"They already started the war," one of the older Na'vi said as he stepped out of the crowd and towards the mound. "They started it when they came here and pillaged the land." He pointed at Jake. "You have had us train for war ever since you took your station; but now it is at hand, and you would have us cower here and hope for peace?" He turned to the tribe and raised his hands. "Do any of you think the Sky People will settle for peace with us?!"

This time, there were no shaking heads for him to take note of.

One of the elders stepped forward and pointed at the warrior. "You embarrass yourself, Khutxo," he said sternly. "Jakesully said nothing of peace, he said we should not be the aggressors. He shows wisdom: Eywa does not permit violence without necessity."

Khutxo shook his head. "Our _wise_ leader has many times spoken of the day when the Sky People will come here as numerous as the stars. We should not be afraid to show them what to expect when they get here."

"And the ones who have helped us prepare our defenses?" the elder pressed. "Would you kill them, too? Maybe only if we are truly merciless will the Sky People stay away from our world."

"If the protected ones are truly on our side, they should have already killed the invaders," Khutxo suggested. "We should not trust our lives to their judgment."

The debate threatened to continue in hundreds of smaller conversations among the people, but Nakllte emerged from the crowd, stepped behind Khutxo, and forcefully turned him to look in his eyes. He held him by his shoulders and mere inches from his face. "You have been allowed to go on long enough," he said, and then raised his voice as he addressed the tribe, "but our leader has made his decision. I expect my warriors to honor it." He pushed a somewhat stunned Khutxo back towards the section of the crowd from which he had emerged, then stepped onto the mound and stood at Jake's side.

Jake's address went on for some time longer, but Mu'kuti ignored it as he followed Khutxo's interactions with those around him. He appeared to have more than a few sympathizers.

Mu'kuti's concentration was broken, however, when a hand grabbed his shoulder. "What do you think, friend?"

He looked around and saw that the crowd was beginning to disperse, and Jake had stepped down from the mound. He turned and saw that it was Tseyo who had broken his concentration. "These are dangerous times," he responded. He nodded in Khutxo's direction. "Who is he?"

"Khutxo?" He snorted. "It's a long story, but in the days before we knew our _olo'eyktan_, he was expected to ascend as a leader of the warriors." Tseyo chuckled. "Sometimes, he thinks he has."

"Ah." He turned again to Tseyo. "And what do you think of all of this?"

"The elder was right," he said quickly and without reservation. "We should not concern ourselves with war if it is not already at hand." He grinned and continued, "Besides, what Khutxo forgets is that if there is anyone here who can understand the Sky People's ways better than themselves, it is Jakesully."

Mu'kuti smiled at Tseyo's confidence.

"How are your trials with Nakllte going?" Tseyo asked.

He shook his head. "He says I am like a child who pretends to be a hunter without knowing how to be one."

Tseyo winced, and then offered, "Perhaps you had another specialty in your forgotten life."

"All of us are hunters first," he replied. "But I understand your point."

"At least you remember that," Nakllte said as he approached the two. He looked at Tseyo, "Even you underwent _Iknimaya_ before you turned your attention to medicine – enthusiastically, if I remember right."

Tseyo lowered his head slightly and nodded. "You're right, of course." He stepped away from Mu'kuti and said to him, "Obviously you are needed elsewhere. I will speak with you later." He then turned and quickly walked away.

Nakllte stepped in front of Mu'kuti, his arms crossed. "Have you finished crafting your spear?"

He nodded. "I have."

"Fetch it, and meet me out on the field. Don't make me waste my time."

Mu'kuti hurried away at the order, treating Nakllte as one of his drill sergeants from basic training. He quickly ascended the Hometree to his hammock, on which his spear rested. Beside it, wrapped in fronds, was his secret weapon, which he tucked away under his belt.

Spear in hand, he met Nakllte on the training field. While a number of smaller training sessions were underway, a small crowd of young and old warriors had gathered near Nakllte to observe Mu'kuti's lessons.

Nakllte did not hesitate to snatch his spear away from him when he arrived. The teacher inspected it with the thoroughness of a drill sergeant checking a recruit's rifle. "It's thin," he said. "And light. You used the wood of a young _tsawlapx_."

"I did."

He frowned and said, "That's better for arrows than spears." He raised the spear up to his eye. "But the shaft is straight," he said. He ran his fingers over the spearhead. "And the stone is well carved." Nakllte brought the spear to rest by his side as he wrapped the spearhead with several fronds, and then handed the weapon back to him.

"You have shown passable skill with the bow and arrow, but only marginal ability with the bolas. Perhaps you will find your way in the spear." Nakllte picked his own spear up from the ground. It was made from a much denser wood than Mu'kuti's, and twice as thick. He took a few steps into the open field, and then turned, holding his spear in both hands. "Come at me."

Mu'kuti grinned, at once and fondly remembering the pugil stick fights that had been a part of his bayonet training. He took his spear in both hands and did not simply go at his teacher – he charged. He tried to shuffle his feet at the last second and come at his teacher from one of his flanks, but Nakllte simply knocked him away.

He turned just in time to see the covered tip of Nakllte's spear about to impale him, and he quickly deflected the thrust with the shaft of his spear. He then pushed Nakllte back in order to turn his spear and make a thrust for his gut; but Nakllte swung the shaft of his spear and hit Mu'kuti squarely on the side of his head, knocking him to the ground.

The audience which had gathered beforehand both cheered and groaned. Some were encouraging Mu'kuti, others asking Nakllte to stop holding back and finish the fight quickly.

"Is that what it felt like when you fell from your _ikran_?" Nakllte asked with a wry grin as Mu'kuti stumbled to his feet. He turned just as Nakllte prepared for another strike, but he charged him. At the last second, he leaned forward and threw his shoulder into Nakllte's chest; and it was his turn to be knocked to the ground.

Again, the crowd expressed their approval and disapproval, depending on the spectators' allegiances.

Mu'kuti turned his spear and prepared to thrust down at his teacher's chest, but Nakllte quickly tripped him with the shaft of his spear. The two were quick to get back on their feet, and they charged at each other.

They crossed their spears, holding their shafts with both hands. Mu'kuti knew that his shaft would splinter if he did not break from the deadlock soon, so he waited for the next time that Nakllte put his weight forward in order to step back and let him trip of his own accord.

As Nakllte stumbled forward, Mu'kuti hit him between his shoulder blades with his elbow, knocking him to the ground once more. As he turned over, Mu'kuti kicked his spear out of his hands, stepped on his forearm, and thrust the head of his spear down to his neck.

He applied enough pressure to drive home the point that he had won the fight – not that the frond sheathing would have allowed the head to penetrate if he had wanted to.

There was a moment of silence on the field, but then the crowd – which Mu'kuti noted had grown significantly – offered many shouts of approval.

Nakllte took a deep breath before he casually pushed the spearhead away from his neck. "I think we have found something you are good at," he said. Mu'kuti brought his spear to his side and helped his teacher to his feet, who then recovered his spear.

"But the _yerik_ will not engage you in hand-to-hand combat." He removed the fronds from his spear and, a moment later, threw the spear downrange. Nakllte extended his hand towards the spear once it impaled in the ground, then crossed his arms and nodded at him.

Mu'kuti removed the frond sheath from his spearhead, and then removed the aide he had kept concealed in his belt. He removed the wrapping and revealed the atlatl. He fixed the atlatl's cup to the spear's shaft, and then let the spear fly. It surged past Nakllte's spear and landed much farther downrange.

Although the crowd hooted their awe and approval, Nakllte looked far less impressed. He held his hand out, quietly asking for the atlatl, and Mu'kuti gave it to him without hesitation. It occurred to him at that moment that in his haste to one-up Nakllte he had inadvertently revealed his knowledge of alien technology – even if it was primitive.

"Go get your spear," he instructed. When he returned, Nakllte addressed the crowd. "Our stranger must be from the river deltas," he said – to Mu'kuti's relief – and held up the atlatl. "The _gim_ is used to strike the _talioang_ from afar." He turned to Mu'kuti. "But there is a reason _we_ do not use this. Give me your spear."

He complied, and very quickly Nakllte affixed the atlatl to the spear; but instead of throwing it downrange, he turned towards the jungle at the field's edge and launched the spear into the trees. It soon became entangled in branches, achieving nothing awe-inspiring. Nakllte turned to him. "We do not use this, because you will never have the space for it in the jungle." He threw the atlatl after the spear.

"I am taking scouts out," Nakllte continued. "You will train with Ralu while I am away." He grabbed his spear and began to walk away, then turned and said, "If you are going to master the spear, you should also have a shield. You have my permission to craft one."

Mu'kuti nodded. "Thank you."

Nakllte looked into the jungle. "Go find your spear." He grinned and said, "I suggest you try the treetops, first."

* * *

Usually Norm was captivated by the bioluminescence and solar dance between the two suns and Polyphemus which kept the night from ever being truly dark, but tonight he wished he could be cloaked in blackness. Sitting outside of Hell's Gate's protective fencing, his mind raced with the possibilities of predators discovering him before he could complete his rendezvous with the Na'vi.

Norm waited patiently for a signal from the Na'vi as he sat guarding the last weapons cache the avatar team would make for Jake. He and the rest of the avatar team had been making frequent forays to the old barracks and armory for weapons since Abe had managed to lock them out of the stereolithographs. Fortunately, they had been regularly wiping the production logs to conceal the extent of their assistance to the Na'vi; but when Jake and his entourage showed up with guns slung over their shoulders, he knew it would be impossible to deny for much longer.

Their expeditions, however, had been more than a little disappointing. They had expected to find rack after rack of long deserted weapons in field-ready condition. Instead, they found holes in the walls and ceiling, plants growing over every possible surface, and many weapons destroyed by their prolonged exposure to the elements.

Minutes passed like hours until, almost imperceptibly, he heard three low whistles from a cat's ear leaf. Norm took his own leaf and blew two whistles in response. Five Na'vi emerged from the brush, warriors' patterns painted on their faces and chests. One stepped out in front of the group. "You are Norm?" he asked in heavily accented English.

"No, I am Trudy," he responded in Na'vi.

Nakllte nodded, accepting the code. He spoke in Na'vi, "You have more weapons for us?"

"It's the last batch," he replied in kind as he removed ghillie netting from the weapons lockers. "We can't make any more weapons, and most of what was left behind has been destroyed by the overgrowth."

Nakllte opened one of the lockers and inspected the weapons. He pulled out a handgun that, in his hands, looked like a toy. He looked at Norm with a disapproving expression.

Norm shrugged. "It's what was available." He opened another locker that contained the more familiar machine guns, and he received a more positive response from Nakllte.

"Bring the _pa'li_," Nakllte said to his warriors as he stood. In a matter of minutes, the weapons lockers were hitched to the direhorses.

Nakllte looked at Norm as he mounted his beast. "I should tell Jakesully that you will not provide any more weapons?"

"I'm afraid so," he responded. "You'll have to make do with what you have."

"There are some in the clan who say we should attack while you are few and weak. What will you do if that happens?"

Norm was stunned by his candid admission. "You want to attack us, after all we've given you?"

Nakllte shook his head. "I meant the other Sky People."

"But you didn't say it."

He leaned forward. "Do you think all of my warriors will be able to tell you apart from the others when the battle starts?" He paused to let that sink in. "So I ask you again: What will you do when it comes?"

Norm took in a deep breath. "We have plans," he replied.

Nakllte waited a moment before he turned and ordered his warriors to depart, and then he followed them into the jungle. Norm was impressed – even the direhorses appeared to be trained to move stealthily, as he barely heard a sound as the warrior band dissolved into the brush.

With the clandestine meeting over, Norm made his own way through the carefully plotted gaps in the base's defenses until he arrived back at the habmod. Max was there to greet him once he passed through the airlock. "I take it everything worked out?" he asked.

"Yeah," Norm replied as he removed his exopack. "I let them know that there's nothing more for them here." He sighed. "Nakllte says that some of the Na'vi want to attack now rather than wait for RDA's reinforcements to arrive."

Max shrugged. "I can't blame them. If I were in their position, I'd want to do the same thing." When Norm didn't respond right away, Max pressed, "You're really worried about this, aren't you?"

"Jake's always had a leadership problem," he replied. "It wasn't an issue when we were at peace, but that might not hold up."

"Their culture isn't like ours," Max said. "I mean, they're not naturally inclined to attack every threat."

"Right, and their reluctance last time cost them a home, sacred land, and an _olo'eyktan_." Norm crossed his arms. "Under the right conditions, any animal can be made to act against its natural impulses – to say nothing of people and the Na'vi."

"So what do we do if they do attack? If Jake's deposed, it's not like we're going to get advance warning."

Norm chuckled. "Maybe we kill off Abe's team and offer their heads on pikes."

Max didn't respond right away. "Well, we don't have to decapitate them."

For the second time tonight, Norm was shocked. "What the fuck are you saying?"

"Look, do you really think when the reinforcements get here that they're just going to peacefully take us out of here?"

"Abe doesn't need us," Norm replied. "If he wanted to kill us off, he could have. We're already dead, remember?"

"But if we just sit here, then it's like we're helping plan RDA's attack."

Norm shook his head. "We're not going to kill them – if for no other reason, then because I do believe Abe when he said that the soldiers have standing orders to kill us all if he's not around when they show up."

Max sighed. "I just don't feel good about having them around."

"It's Pandora," Norm said with a nervous laugh. "When was the last time you felt good about anything?"

* * *

Abe was not surprised when he found that the avatar team had erased most of the data on the base's central servers. He was surprised, however, that they were not familiar with the backup system that had been built with the communications center in the refinery.

Although it looked like the secondary communications center would take a while longer to become operational, very little effort was needed to access the backup servers. Abe had spent several days scanning through the more pertinent files, but he could already tell that getting read up on the last months of Hell's Gate would take weeks of study.

He had also not been surprised to find that the avatar team had thoroughly ransacked Parker's old office, and so he had hastily converted some old, secondary administrative space for his purposes. Despite being light years away from Earth and any semblance of a rigid, corporate structure, Abe insisted on working in an office – and that his office be duly respected by his team. The only thing he wished he had brought with him was his assistant, Donna.

He was surprised by the knock on the door. As a force of habit, he tried to patch in to Donna's desk and ask who was trying to bother him, and then laughed at the idea. "Come in," he called out.

Matthew entered the office and took a seat opposite of Abe's desk. "I've got the information you were looking for, Boss."

"Great, let me see it." Matthew handed him a tablet that, as he moved from one file to the next, he found was cluttered with medical and anthropological jargon. He chuckled and handed the tablet back to the doctor. "Maybe you should just explain it to me."

Matthew grinned and took the tablet back. "Well, on the first point," he began, "we know almost nothing about the details of their reproduction. I mean, we know it's not dissimilar from our ways, but it's not like we ever got the Na'vi to submit to studies on the subject."

Abe grinned and responded, "I can't blame them. Who wants a bunch of scientists poking and prodding you while you're in the middle of that?"

"True," Matthew replied with a similar grin. "Anyway, on the second point – well, how detailed do you want me to be?"

"Just run me through the basics. I'll ask questions along the way."

Matthew nodded. "Fine. The transgenetics involved in creating the avatars goes beyond the common perception of us injecting some genetic material in an egg and growing a body. Human and Na'vi DNA are too incompatible for that. It's more like forced chimerism."

Abe raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," he said with a sigh. "First we have to grow a human zygote from the genetic material of the would-be avatar driver, and at the same time we grow a Na'vi zygote from our available genetic materials; then we merge the two."

He was surprised by how simple Matthew made it sound. "We can do that? Just – Just like that?"

"The science has been around since the late-twentieth century," he replied with a shrug. "They thought it might be a means to save endangered species: combine the genes of an endangered species with those of a similar, non-endangered species, and have the non-endangered species produce offspring that were generically similar to the endangered species."

Abe snorted. "Clearly that worked out."

Matthew shrugged again. "It's like your kid's science project. You put enough effort into it so your kid wins first place, and then you leave the thing to rot in the basement."

Abe wondered how many of these "science projects" were being used to keep Natalie alive. "Okay, so, how does this affect our lovely couple?"

"Well, in these cases of chimerism, the body's organs may form from either zygote. That's why they have to be from similar genetic families, otherwise you end up with incompatible organs in the same body, and it dies."

"Are human and Na'vi physiologies that similar for it to just work?"

Matthew shook his head. "Not even remotely. That's why when we are successful in creating a viable chimera, we have to intervene very early to make sure that the core organs are Na'vi to allow the body to survive in Pandora's atmosphere, while the brain and central nervous system have to be human in order to allow for a successful link between the body and the avatar driver."

Abe nodded. "I think I see where you're going with this, but keep on with it."

"Well, like I said earlier, we weren't really interested in Na'vi mating rituals," He chuckled. "Even if we were, there was no way to know that one of our avatars would get close enough to try it out personally. So those organs were left in God's hands, so to speak."

"They could be either human or Na'vi."

"Right."

"And because our DNA is so incompatible–"

"—If Jake's using human equipment, Neytiri's body will totally reject it."

Abe leaned back in his chair. "I'm going to guess the cure for this is an organ transplant, and that's out of the question up here."

"You're right and you're wrong," Matthew replied.

"Oh?"

"The first miners and SecOps personnel we shipped in were so paranoid that Pandora's toxic atmosphere was going to render them sterile that they refused to work unless RDA provided them with fertility treatments," he said with a chuckle. "Their concerns were baseless, but I checked the medical bay." He opened his arms, "Lo and behold, it has a fully functional fertility clinic; and the main bay has tissue regeneration capabilities. We just have to get some of Jake's Na'vi DNA, and then I'm fairly confident we take care of the rest."

Abe smiled and said, "Well, that's a good turn of fortune." He paused. "On an unrelated question, if we're able to manipulate this chimera DNA, what's the deal with the avatars' human hands and eyes?"

"Well, the original avatars were meant for the miners, and they were pretty much the same as the avatar you put Devon into. The miners, though, kept complaining about feeling phantom limbs, and they quickly suffered from high rates of migraines and an assortment of degenerative eye sight from the back-and-forth between the human and avatar bodies; so we made the hands and eyes human dominant features to mitigate those problems."

Abe leaned forward. "Hold on, the pure Na'vi body is the original model?"

Matthew nodded. "Yeah. But after it became too expensive to give each miner an avatar, they just never went back to the original."

"Son of a bitch," Abe said as he shook his head. "The lab techs on Earth made a stink about how difficult it was going to be to make a pure Na'vi body compatible with a human driver, so I kept throwing money at them until they shut up."

Matthew was silent for a moment, and then he laughed. "Well, Boss, it sounds like you were sold a brand new, old car with a new coat of paint."

"No shit." They were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Who is it?" Abe asked.

"Miguel. You wanted to see me?"

"I thought our appointment was for three-o-clock?"

"It is three, Boss."

Abe furrowed his brow. He looked at Matthew and asked, "What time did I ask you to be here?"

"Three," he replied with a sideways smile.

He shook his head again. "I really do need Donna here," he said to himself. "Miguel, you're late."

"Actually," Matthew said, "I came early."

"Should I come back later?" Miguel asked.

Abe sighed. "No, come on in." He indicated for Matthew to leave. "Thank you, Doc, this was helpful. Depending on what Miguel has to say, I may have a way to get what you need in the near future."

Matthew nodded and left, and Miguel took his seat. "Don't do your own dirty work, huh?" Miguel asked with a wry grin.

Abe raised an eyebrow at that. "What are you talking about?"

"You suits never do your own scheduling and shit like that. You always need someone to do it for you."

He snorted. "Yeah, well, until they invent thirty hours in a day—," he waved off the rest of that train of thought. "Anyway, I just want to see how your project is coming."

Miguel shrugged. "No serious issues so far. I think we've got all the hardware I need, it's just getting the design right that's the trick. It's still possible, I just haven't made something like this before."

"When do you think you'll be ready to deliver?"

"Two weeks, maybe three."

Abe shook his head. "What would it take for you to get it done in two weeks _tops_?"

Miguel laughed. "I'd need a team for that, but I'm afraid all I've got is me."

He thought through the assignments he had given out so far. He needed Kim, Scott and Dawn on the communications project, and Matthew and Amy were busy applying their respective fields of study. "What if I gave you Jose and Parker, would that help?"

"I don't know," he said. "They don't have experience with this kind of stuff, at least that I know about. I guess I could give them some of the little shit to do, get it out of my way."

Abe opened his arms and smiled. "That's the whole foundation of delegating. They're yours – at least until the communications terminal is up, and then I'll need Jose back."

Miguel's eyes widened slightly. "You're serious? I get to boss people around?"

He grinned. "Just don't be an asshole about it. Nobody likes to work for a tyrant."

"Fair enough," Miguel said with a clap of his hands. "Anything else, Boss?"

Abe shook his head. "Let me know when you're close to delivery, and then we'll talk about the next step."


	10. Probe, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

**A/N – You know, it was only the other day that I saw that I had disabled PMs. That's fixed. Also, I was having trouble uploading to FFNet, so apologies for the delay in installments.**

* * *

Norm was interrupted as he cleaned Hell's Kitchen's walk-in freezer. "Need help?" she asked. He turned and saw Amy leaning in the doorway.

He shook his head and turned back to the shelves. "No, thanks."

"Are you sure?" she pressed. "It looks like you could use a hand."

"If I needed help, I would have asked for it."

"Would you ask me?"

He sighed and turned to her. "Probably not, no. So do you need something, or will you leave me alone?"

Amy briefly raised her eyebrows then nodded slowly. "Okay," she said after taking a deep breath. "I get it. No fraternizing with the enemy."

"Exactly," he said. "So what do you really want?"

"The rations we brought down are running low," she replied. "I want to see what you have to eat around here."

He snorted. "I saw how much you guys stocked on that transport. Abe doesn't strike me as the type of guy to miscalculate something as crucial as how much food his people are going to need."

"Okay, you're right," she said with a hand raised in defense. "How about: I'm getting tired of MREs and bland, pre-packaged, dehydrated – you get the point." She stepped towards him. "Every night I can smell the dinners you guys cook for your crew, and I can't stand being on the outside anymore."

Norm sighed and looked about the shelves. "We have some hammerhead meat left – we got lucky and killed one wandering near the perimeter just before you guys showed up – but we're mostly stocked with hexapede." He walked down the shelves, Amy following alongside him. At one point, he sniffed – and promptly discarded – a package of rotten meat. "I guess we're out of sturmbeest. I doubt we'll get that again for a while."

"Why's that?"

"They're almost impossible to kill," he said without looking at her. "They're like the old water buffalo – they're quick to stampede, or they'll fight back as a herd; so the Na'vi around here prefer to go after easier kills. Plus, they're migrating away right now."

He grabbed a bag of large, grub-like animals. "We raise plenty of teylu out in the old avatar compound. They taste like shrimp if you steam them right." He returned the bag and walked to the end of the shelf. "And rounding out the menu, we have prolemuris offal – it looks much worse than it tastes – and fruits, nuts, and cycad bread in the walk-in refrigerator."

"Well, thank you, Chef Spellman," she said with a smile. "What do you recommend we start with?"

"We?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

She let out a short laugh. "The War College didn't have culinary classes. And since most of this looks hard to come by, I would hate to ruin it with improper preparation."

He shook his head. "I thought we just established a no fraternization rule."

"Think of it as abiding by Article 33 of the Sixth Geneva Convention," she replied with a grin. He gave her a puzzled look, and so she promptly recited, "'Prisoners of war shall, as far as possible, be associated with the preparation of their meals; and they may be employed for that purpose in the kitchens."

"You're a prisoner of war, now?" he asked with a laugh.

She shrugged. "You're the ones who disembarked our ship at gunpoint, stripped us of rights of arms, and keep us in designated quarters."

"You're free to roam around the base."

"Except the communications center – which, by the way, may be taken as a violation of Article 71, whereby prisoners are permitted to send and receive…"

"I got it," he interrupted with his hands raised. He snorted and said, "I'll be happy to face a war tribunal or whatever to discuss the point."

She only responded with a smile.

He sighed and surrendered. "Fine," he said after a moment to weigh his options. "Let me finish cleaning up in here, and I'll meet you on the range."

Later, Norm walked her through the preparation of hexapede sandwiches on cycad flatbread with a _kxener_ spread. He was surprised by her reaction after her first bite. "Holy shit, that's good." He looked up from his own sandwich with his eyebrows raised. She chuckled and covered her mouth. "Sorry. I haven't had real meat in two months, and even then it was just ground beef."

He smiled and said, "Yeah, this is a couple of steps up from that."

"A couple of steps? This is fine dining." Norm waited before resuming his meal. He had long ago forgotten about the lack of variety of food available to the common person on Earth, even in the United States. Any premium meats were raised and butchered on highly secure farms, only to be sold to upper crust restaurants. He doubted Amy's officer salary would have allowed her to even approach the doors of those establishments – not that Norm had ever managed it himself.

Whether it was her routine in the Army or the relative quality of the food, Amy inhaled her sandwich well ahead of Norm. She leaned back in her chair. "Now all I need is a beer."

Norm chuckled. "We've tried a couple of the local grains," he admitted, "but we couldn't come up with anything that wouldn't ferment without either becoming hallucinogenic, deadly, or at least unpalatable."

She sighed and picked up her glass. "Well, I guess purified, distilled water won't kill me," she said. After she drank and set her glass down, she asked, "So what do you give to the Na'vi in exchange for the meat?"

He knew there was something she was really after, but he was prepared. "Nothing," he said cooly, crossing his arms. She looked unconvinced. "The Na'vi have very, very basic preservation methods; and since it offends Eywa to kill an animal and let the meat spoil, they give any excess to us. We're a surplus depot."

"You sound more like pets getting scraps from the master's table than a warehouse," she said.

"Yeah, well, as long as we don't starve, right?"

Amy took a deep breath and leaned forward. "Have you figured out why I'm here?"

"You're military, so I figure you're the one putting together the attack plan."

"Miguel, Dawn, and Scott are also former military," she offered.

He nodded and replied, "But you're the only one Abe introduced by rank, Colonel." He paused. "We already had one colonel here, and it didn't work out too well."

"Colonel Quaritch was a Jarhead. I'm Army," she said with a grin, "and we take pride in our ability to think for ourselves."

"Have you given to much thought about just who it is you're helping?" he asked. "I mean, I don't know if you've bought into Abe's kindler, gentler RDA, but I can guarantee that it's a bunch of bullshit."

Amy took a deep breath. "Why did you come here?"

"Don't change the subject."

She grinned. "All right," she replied with a nod. "But if I answer you, will you answer me?"

He took a moment to consider it. "Okay."

She nodded again. "Of course I know what RDA wants to do up here," she said. "I just don't object. Hundreds of millions of people back home are suffering, and we've found a world that can help lift the human race out of squalor. I've spent my life brainstorming ways to stop wars in progress because people are in wanting. Pandora could stop war, period."

He snorted. "You can't believe that."

"Why not?"

"We knew for one-hundred years that oil was a finite resource," he replied. "But we used it up anyway. It was the same with coal. It will be the same with unobtanium." He shook his head. "RDA's just using Pandora to sustain life as usual, not make it better. Once they use up Pandora, they'll find some other world to rape."

Now Amy shook her head. "You've been away for too long," she said. "The new money is in cleaning up Earth, not keeping up unsustainable lifestyles."

"They said the same about the so-called green economy," he replied. "All it did was make people feel less guilty about doing the same things."

"That's because they didn't think they had anything to lose. Now there's nothing left to lose. Florida can't sink twice, you know?"

"We're not getting anywhere with this," he said with a sigh. "Okay, assume I believe in RDA's benevolence. What's your part in all of this?"

She wagged her finger at him. "No, now it's your turn to answer my question."

He leaned back in his chair. "I came here to make a difference," he said. "I knew what RDA was doing, but unlike you, I couldn't tolerate it; and I knew that people on the outside of RDA weren't able to do squat to change things."

Amy grinned. "You were going to be a one-man fifth column?"

Norm shook his head. "It was a team effort." He sighed and leaned forward. "Jake's brother was the real force behind it. He was so mad about what happened to Jake that he wanted to put an end to the endless energy wars; but he knew RDA wasn't doing anything other than maintaining the status quo to boost its profits." He chuckled, "You know, on the surface, it's hard to think of the two as twins – one was a Marine, the other was a brilliant scientist. But they were running on the same impulse: They both wanted to do something meaningful."

She nodded. "Well, Norm, you and I clearly differ on RDA's intentions; but like you, I don't want to see this world destroyed. I'm not an offensive strategist, I'm a counter-insurgency specialist." She smiled and added, "And a damn good one, frankly."

"So why aren't you still in the Army?"

He had clearly hit a sore spot. Amy took a deep breath and said, "I got on the fast track up to light colonel, but I got passed over by the promotion board twice when I was up for the full-bird." She shook her head. "No combat experience." She snorted and clarified, "They couldn't say that in so many words, of course, so they said I didn't have 'adequate levels of responsibility' in my previous assignments. I didn't want to spend the rest of my career knowing that I wasn't going to advance any higher, so I separated after my last assignment."

Norm frowned and said, "I'm sorry. But still, counter-insurgency isn't exactly a 'peaceful' solution; it's just what large armies do to fight smaller battles."

"Not always," she insisted. "It's as much about understanding the local population, the culture, and the sources of conflict in order to prevent hostilities." She sighed and looked him squarely in the eyes. "I can probably come up with a sound strategy based on the information available here, but I would appreciate it if you advised me."

Norm laughed. "No way," he said. "I'm not going to help you take down the Na'vi."

"I want to protect them," Amy replied. "Because in the absence of my plan, you and I both know that RDA will pull out the old playbook." She stood and said, "Just think about it."

He did not reply right away. She nodded and said, "Well, thank you for the meal." And then she turned and left the mess hall.

Norm sat there for minutes after she had gone.

* * *

"Are you ready, Parker?" Abe asked.

He nodded. "Do you think it will work?"

"Scott, Kim, and Dawn are sure of it," he said with a nod. "And if I didn't trust their abilities, they wouldn't be here."

Parker took a deep breath and asked, "So what do I do if it goes wrong? They're going to be the ones with the guns."

"Shut it down and try not to get shot," Abe replied matter-of-factly. "We need this to work, otherwise there's no point in doing anything else." There was a knock on Abe's door. "Come in."

Laura, one of the old avatar drivers, entered the office. "Are you two ready?" she asked.

"Parker's going to go," Abe replied. "I have work to do."

"Christ, you are a corporate shill, aren't you?" she replied. "I mean, your boss is four and a half light years away, and you're still doing the nine-to-five." Abe just stared at her blankly. She shook her head, turned to Parker and said, "All right, let's go. I have other things to do."

"Like what?" Parker asked.

"Like not babysit you," she snapped back.

He sighed and walked with her towards the communications center. "So have you enjoyed playing native?" he asked. She declined to respond. He snorted. "Sounds like a hoot."

As Norm had promised weeks earlier, sitting at the room's entrance was an armed guard. Parker could not remember the former employee's name, although he didn't feel bad about the memory lapse. The guard stood and nodded at Laura. "Did he give you any trouble?"

"I'm afraid not, Luke," she replied.

He grinned and patted his gun. "Do you want me to _say_ he was giving you trouble?"

Parker snorted and said, "Ooh, big man threatening to shoot a guy without a gun."

"Yeah? So how did you feel when you sent Quaritch out with gunships to fight a bunch of bow-wielding people?"

He laughed. "You guys just don't get over shit, do you?"

Luke shook his head. "You know what's sick about that? For us it was more than ten years ago; but for you, it was less than a year ago, and you're already 'over it.' What does that say about you?"

Parker was about to respond, but Laura cut him off. "Both of you shut up. Let's just get inside and get this done."

Parker took a seat at the main terminal, flanked by Luke and Laura. He logged in to the orbital communications network and withdrew a codebook from his pocket. However, before he could begin entering codes, Laura reached over and snatched the book from him. "What is this?" she asked. "This isn't the right book."

He turned to look at her. "Do you think RDA kept using the same certificates after we told them that a bunch of tree huggers had taken over the base?"

"It's how we detected you in the first place," she replied.

"We had to use the old codes to log in to the network."

"You just have an answer for everything, don't you?" Luke offered.

Parker quickly stood up and turned to Luke. "Look, if you want to shoot me, then do it." He turned to Laura. "And if you don't believe me, then you can sit down and send the message your goddamned self."

Laura did not hesitate to take the seat. She called up the message prompt. "What do you want to say?"

Parker gave a lengthy recap of the last month's events. She hit send, and Parker held his breath as he watched the screen process the command.

"Shit," she said. "I've got an error message."

"What kind of error?" Luke asked.

"It's not validating the signal from this terminal. It's telling me I'm locked out."

Parker was relieved. When the engineering team restored the secondary communications station, they sent up a virus to the orbital network to jam any signals coming from the main terminal – at least until Parker entered the right codes.

"Of course it's not," Parker said. "We put in the new decryption certificates once we were in orbit. That's why you guys got locked out. We restored your ground-to-ground links, not the orbital links."

Laura turned to stare at him. "We told you to give us _full_ access," she said.

"And you didn't know the difference until now. Go cry a river and let me enter the access codes."

"Fine," she said, and then she relinquished the seat.

Parker sat at the terminal, took his code book back, and entered the predetermined sequence. All the while he was scanning the various screens to make sure the remote terminal was not being detected. The thought occurred to him, however, that perhaps the reason why he was not seeing any detections was because the setup had failed.

A few moments later, the error message disappeared. "See?" he said. "We're back in."

The second stage of the virus the engineers had constructed, which was now unlocked, ensured that any messages sent from the main communications station would be hopelessly scrambled. Parker sent the message he had dictated to Laura; but what the satellites sent to Earth would be indecipherable by RDA's ground stations when they arrived in four years.

If a message leaving Pandora was not routed through the _Cybele_ first, it was not getting to Earth intact.

"Are you done?" Luke asked.

"Yeah," Parker said. "I'm done."

"Then let's go."

They escorted Parker out of the center, and then Laura went on her way. Parker returned to Abe's office just as he was finishing up his briefing to Savage and the RDA leadership. "Don't keep us in suspense, Parker," Abe said. "How did it go?"

"Like clockwork," he replied. "We got the center locked out, and I didn't see their scanners detect this terminal."

Abe nodded. "Thank you, Parker. I'll find you if I need anything else."

* * *

Nakllte approached Jake and Neytiri as they descended the Hometree from their hammock. "I see you," he said with a slight bow to the couple. "It's time to choose who will undertake _Iknimaya_."

"Who do you recommend?" Jake asked.

The warrior general offered a number of names, but Jake and Neytiri were most surprised by his final recommendation. Neytiri was the first to ask, however. "Mu'kuti?" Neytiri said, not bothering to mask her suspicions in her tone. "Are you sure?"

"I have watched his progress, _Tsahik_, and although he stumbles occasionally, he is no worse than others we have raised to one of the People's hunters," he replied with a glance at Jake. From any but a handful of others, Jake would have taken that as a challenge to his authority. However, Nakllte had proven himself to be loyal on more than one occasion; so Jake grinned, and Nakllte responded with a sideways smile.

Neytiri, however, shook her head. "I have doubts," she said. "He seems very removed from us. He cannot serve the People if he does not want to be among them."

"I think he is too aware of the suspicions the People have for him," Nakllte responded. "If he proves himself in this trial – if we take him into our home – they will be more certain, and he will be closer to us." He paused. "But I will not take him without your blessing," he said with a nod to her that was almost a reverent bow.

Neytiri sighed and looked at Jake. "He will be one of your hunters. If you think he is ready to serve the tribe, I will go before Eywa to bless his journey."

Jake crossed his arms and took a deep breath. He looked at Neytiri and tried to get a read on her emotions. Early on in their relationship – even before they had a relationship – he learned to see her intentions through her eyes, even though she was rarely reserved when it came to her opinions. His abilities were honed in the years since they mated.

Despite this, he was not certain if she was being deferential or simply resigned to his opinion.

He looked at Nakllte. "He said he already had an _ikran_, right? That he fell from it." He nodded. "Then this shouldn't be a trial for him at all," Jake finished with a grin.

Nakllte nodded again and turned to Neytiri. "_Tsahik_?"

"We will perform the ceremony tonight," she said. "Have your chosen ones ready." Nakllte swiftly departed, and she turned to Jake. "Mu'kuti aside, the ones he has chosen are younger than I would like to see go on this pilgrimage."

"Then why did you allow it?"

"You know why."

He nodded. "Everyone else of a hunter's age has already undergone the rites."

The battle for the Tree of Souls had taken a heavy toll on the Omaticaya's breeding population, leaving a gap in the younger generations. The ones who were children at the time of the battle had grown up and bonded with their _ikrans_. Those who were very young at the time were close to the right age, but with fewer children behind them, they were more eager to shake loose the bonds of youth and prove that they ought to be considered true warriors.

Furthermore, with the announcement of the Sky People's return, more of the People wanted something to celebrate to take their minds, however briefly, off of the suffering that may well be at hand; and the warriors wanted to begin training their certain-to-be replacements.

"Do you think it was the wrong choice?" he asked.

She shook her head. "They are ready, just very young." She smiled and continued, "Of course, _I_ was thought to be too young when I was chosen by Seze."

"Is that so?" he asked with a smile.

She nodded and let out a short laugh. "Father tried to keep mother from blessing my journey, but she knew Eywa would watch over me." Neytiri's smile faded as she lowered her head. "He did, too, but—" her voice trailed off.

"But he was your father," he said. "And fathers protect their daughters."

Ever since the night after their meeting with Abe, Neytiri had tried to be more open about her memories of Eytukan; but he knew it still brought her pain to talk about him. Still, he could tell that she became stronger with each memory she recalled, and he always took pleasure in her strength.

"He is still my father," she said as she raised her head to look at him, her smile having returned. "He protects me still." She paused. "It is the same with fathers on Earth?"

Jake nodded. "Most fathers on Earth will do anything for their daughters, yes."

Her smile became devious, and she raised her brow. "Did they have to protect their daughters from you, Jakesully?"

He felt his face become flush with blood. Once in their conversations he had raised the nature of human courtship and humans' nature to have multiple partners. Immediately she had wanted to know his dating history, and he did everything in his power to keep that information from her.

"I think you should start preparing for the ceremony tonight," he replied.

She nodded then leaned forward as if to kiss him, but she stopped him just as they were about to. "They were not as pretty as me, right?" she asked just above a whisper.

"Of course not."

Neytiri jabbed him in the stomach enough to cause him to stumble backward. "You are supposed to say I am the only one," she said teasingly and with a crooked smile. He was about to take her on the tone of her voice alone, but then he looked in her eyes.

She was not teasing.


	11. Probe, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

"He's not going to war," Tseyo said as he crouched behind Mehi'a, looking over her shoulder. "You're giving him too much paint."

"It is the ceremony," Mehi'a replied. "When he is on the mountain top, the designs can be humble. Tonight, they should be elaborate. But if you think it is too much—" she wiped some excess paint off of his cheek, then spun around quickly and brushed it across Tseyo's nose "—it is because you are distracting me!"

Mu'kuti chuckled as Tseyo fell backwards from the surprise attack. "Fine!" Tseyo said as he stood up. "I was just trying to be helpful."

"Be helpful by sitting there and saying nothing," she commanded, and he hesitated before obeying.

Mu'kuti learned early on that the Na'vi were not big on vanity – they were acutely aware that spending hours obsessing over bodies that would one day be left to decompose was a fruitless endeavor. Real beauty, they emphasized, was in how they lived. Even the patterns Mehi'a was painting on his chest and face were as much symbolic as they were decorative: chevrons were the banshees he sought, lines formed a crude map of the path he was about to take, and circles were the interconnectedness of all the life under Eywa.

Still, he did wish he had a mirror to know better whose side to take in the frivolity argument.

He also caught himself paying close attention to Mehi'a's bioluminescent markers. With the fires burning bright below them around the Hometree's altar, the nook where they sat was concealed in a deep shadow. Mehi'a was silhouetted by the firelight, but the markers on her body burned brightly; however, as she returned to concentrating on the paint, the markers slowly dimmed to a faint, but still radiant blue.

A few moments later, she finished and smiled. "You look ready," she said. "Do you remember the song?"

He sighed. "Can I wait until the ceremony starts?" He knew the song well – it was one of the few that the first avatar teams had recorded, and he had mastered it in his training during the _Cybele_'s interstellar flight; but he knew from more than a few concerts to the grout of his shower tiles that his voice was not ready for public review.

She grinned and slightly shook her head. "I am sure you are a great singer," she said. "So, please, the song."

He took a deep breath.

He took another.

Mehi'a and Tseyo both began to laugh. "Sing!" Tseyo urged. "You can't just go down there and breathe."

"To take my place among the People, / I must join my life to you. / Eywa calls me to the sky, / Above, above the ground I climb. /

"I cannot wait; / I cannot fear; / I cannot flee; / I must overcome this trial. /

"When I find you, you are free; / you will not lay freedom down for me. / So I will strike, and you will fight. / If I am weak, I will die. /

"I cannot wait; / I cannot fear; / I cannot flee; / I must overcome this trial. /

"I take away your sight, / You see me still. / I bind you, I mount you, / Our souls are bound, away we fly!

"I did not wait; / I did not fear; / I did not flee; / I am with the People now!"

He sighed and extended his hands. Mehi'a and Tseyto were very obviously trying to be polite, but a smattering of coughs and escaped giggles betrayed them. "At least the drums will be very loud," Tseyo finally said, and their laughter could not be contained any longer. Mu'kuti crossed his arms and looked away, but Mehi'a reached out and turned him back to look at her.

She smiled and said, "It is true that you will never, never be one of this tribe's great singers; but the song was right." Mehi'a let out a short laugh and said, "But please, let the others sing a little louder than you."

The night-long ceremony went on as expected. Neytiri, through lively dances and songs, channeled Eywa's blessings onto the prospective hunters. That morning, Nakllte led the party on a three-day trek on direhorseback to the Hallelujah Mountains. To symbolize their impending bond with their banshees, they released their direhorses back into the jungles at the base of the mountains.

At any other point, Mu'kuti might have worried that the awestruck expression he unreservedly showed on seeing the mountains would have given himself away as an outsider. However, the adolescents who were with him were similarly awestruck; Nakllte, too, had a moment of pause to look over the landscape. Eventually he turned to the pilgrims and said, "They are as perilous as they are beautiful." Then he nodded, "Let's go."

Their climb up the majestically floating mountains was every bit as arduous and dangerous as he had expected, but he managed it. He and the four other hopeful riders cautiously approached the banshees' nesting grounds, and Nakllte stopped them at the precipice. "This is for real," he said, and the group nodded. He patted one of the younger ones on the shoulder, and then looked at Mu'kuti. "You've ridden _ikran_ before, so show them how it's done."

He nodded – he knew he had no other choice. As he stepped past Nakllte and out onto the mountain ledge, he took his bolo from his belt and began swinging it, building momentum. The banshees on the mountain let out a series of shrieks as they fled – all but one. A male, green skinned with a mix of warmer yellows and reds forming complex patterns atop the base, turned and stepped towards him, alternately hissing and shrieking.

He had been chosen.

Quietly, Mu'kuti sang, "I cannot wait; / I cannot fear; / I cannot flee," and then tossed the bolo towards the banshee. Much to his surprise, it was a perfect strike. The bolo struck the banshee's head at the eyes, and it looped around the snout at the jaws' hinge, locking the mouth shut. He pulled on the bolo to tighten the loop, at the same time to fight against the many tugs and thrashings of the banshee. With the bolo taught, Mu'kuti ran towards the beast, mounted it quickly, and formed the _tsaheylu_.

When he linked with the direhorses, he felt in near total control; it was as though his will was vastly superior to theirs. With the banshee, though, he felt as though there was a competing intelligence; he may be in control, but he was by no means lording over it.

Once he settled in to the sensation, he looked up to see the other prospective hunters whooping and cheering. Even Nakllte appeared impressed. He knew that he had just experienced an incredible stroke of luck, but he also knew it aided him all the more in cementing his cover. Mu'kuti took an immodest bow, and then he unwrapped the bolo. "If you will grant me leave," he said, "I am going to bond with _ikran_."

Through their shared consciousness, he took flight with the banshee. Mu'kuti reveled in the sensation of the air rushing by him, in each rise and fall of the banshee on the wind. His balance was less than perfect; but through the _tsaheylu_, he alerted the banshee to his imbalances. The beast often corrected his orientation to keep Mu'kuti on his feet.

He guided his banshee back towards the ledge from which they came and witnessed one of the younger prospective riders having far less success in restraining her banshee. Far from having a smooth first strike of her bolo like Mu'kuti had managed, she overshot – leaving an angered banshee between her and her only means of restraint. The young Na'vi made an attempt to leap past the banshee, but she was not quick enough. What happened next seemed to take place in a sickening slow motion. The banshee pivoted, craned its neck and bit down on her leg, then flung her off the ledge.

Mu'kuti had a flashback to the urban firefights he had fought on Earth, often watching helplessly children try to duck through the crossfire – most unsuccessfully. Then, he had been helpless; now, he was not.

"Down!" he called out to his banshee – not that it was necessary. The animal had already sensed his horror, his urgency, and had begun a steep dive. The closer he got to the young Na'vi, the more clearly he could hear her desperate screams.

He knew he only had one shot at the rescue. He braced himself, reached out, and grabbed the Na'vi. The laws of inertia being the same on Pandora as on Earth, however, he quickly lost his balance and was pulled down as the adolescent continued her descent for another few feet. The banshee shrieked as Mu'kuti fell, their bond almost breaking, and began to lose its own balance.

Throughout this, he managed to maintain his hold on the girl.

Mu'kuti pulled her up and onto the banshee's back. "Hold on!" he commanded her. She managed to grapple the banshee's back, and he turned his attention to restoring the animal's flight.

"Calm down!" he barked, and a moment later – and spitting distance from the jungle canopy – the banshee resumed a level flight. Mu'kuti sighed in relief. "Take us back," he said, and the banshee climbed skyward on his instructions.

He looked back at the youth and saw the severity of her wound. The banshee's teeth had penetrated through her flesh and to her bone, and she was losing blood quickly from the many lacerations. A long, thick stream of crimson flowed down the banshee's back. Mu'kuti spotted an outcropping on the path leading up to the banshee nesting grounds, and landed there. Nakllte and the others raced down the path, and they met as Mu'kuti carried the wounded Na'vi – who was now fully aware of her injuries and crying out in pain – off the banshee's back.

Mu'kuti tied his bolo around the girl's leg above the banshee bite, but he knew it was barely enough to stem the flow of blood. "She needs help," he said to Nakllte. "But she won't make it back to Hometree."

Nakllte nodded, but did not respond right away. The other youths began to sob, and he turned to them. "When you are hunters, you _will _see your friends hurt – many of them badly, like her. But do not mourn them until they are dead. Do you understand?" They nodded.

Mu'kuti lowered his voice and said, "She will be dead if we don't do something now."

Nakllte sighed. "Do you know how to get to the Sky People's home?"

* * *

Abe was startled by the sudden commotion. He stepped out of his office in time to see Max running for the airlock. "What's going on?" he shouted after him.

"Nothing you'd care about!" he responded without looking back.

He ran after him, grabbing an exopack off the wall as he approached the airlock doors. When he was outside, he saw Norm, Max, and a few other of the renegades kneeling over a young Na'vi. Standing over them, much to his surprise, was Devon, behind whom as a rather restless banshee.

A moment later, Devon made eye contact with him, but he quickly looked away – Abe assumed to avoid tipping off to the others that they were already familiar acquaintances.

"Get a gurney and whatever supplies you can," Norm said. "We need to stabilize her right now." Two of the avatar team hurried past Abe and back inside. He looked at Max. "And go call – Wait." He turned to Devon, "_Ngal lu ta Omaticaya srak?_" Devon nodded, and Norm turned back to Max. "Go call Jake." Max hurried away.

"She has to get to the medical bay," Laura said. "If we don't get blood flowing back into the lower leg, she's going to lose it."

"If she doesn't bleed out, first," Norm replied. "But we don't have any exopacks calibrated to pump Pandora's atmosphere. Besides, she's freaking out enough as it is. If we take her inside, who knows what will happen."

"What can I do to help?" Abe asked.

Norm barely acknowledged his presence. "Nothing."

"We can rig one quickly," Laura continued, ignoring the brief exchange. "If you can just keep her stable for ten minutes, I can fix one up that will work long enough for us to get a permanent one going."

Norm sighed. "All right, go do it." He turned to Abe. "If you want to help, take her place."

"What was she doing?" he asked as he knelt over the Na'vi – he was startled by how young she looked, perhaps barely a teenager were she human – and got a look at the wound. It was sickening. She had clearly lost a lot of blood, and an infection was beginning to take hold.

"She was going to apply the antiseptic there," Norm said, pointing out an open first aid kit. He spoke quickly to Devon, who apparently at his instructions, knelt beside Abe to hold the Na'vi's arm. "Rub the gauze over the wound," he said to Abe. "And be ready for her to fight back."

Abe recalled when Natalie was still very young and cut her knees after falling off her bike. When he dabbed the scrapes with hydrogen peroxide, she reflexively kicked and struck him squarely in the crotch. The wound in front of him was immeasurably more terrible, and the Na'vi an order of magnitude more powerful. Abe found himself feeling very uncomfortable.

"What are you waiting for?" Norm asked. "Just do it."

Abe brought one of the medicated gauze pads to the wound, and the reaction from the Na'vi was immediate and violent. She kicked and screamed, despite Norm and Devon's combined attempts to calm her in words too rapid for him to discern. Abe carried on until he felt he had adequately medicated the wound, which also happened to be the moment the other renegades emerged with a gurney carrying proper emergency equipment.

He stepped away while they further stabilized the adolescent, and then Laura appeared a few minutes later with the modified exopack. Norm turned to Devon and, by his body language, Abe could tell that he was explaining all that had happened. Much to his credit, Devon was putting on a solid performance of indigenous indignation at the "Sky People's" interventions.

As the others wheeled the Na'vi inside, Norm looked at Abe. "You said Dawn speaks Na'vi, right?"

"A little bit," he replied.

"I'll send her out, then. Stay here and keep him company," he said with a nod towards Devon. "His name is Mu'kuti, and he's promised not to kill you." At that, Norm followed the others inside.

The silence between them as they stood alone – banshee aside – in the yard was palpable, broken a minute later when Devon asked, "Where the fuck have you guys been?"

"No English!" Abe snapped back. "Wait for Dawn." He managed to stay silent for a few moments, and then he sighed. "We only just recently got communications access," he said. "But for what it's worth, the fact that you're only updating at night and once a week makes it difficult to time a two-way conversation."

Devon fired off a response in Na'vi, to which Abe could only reply, "Apology accepted."

Dawn emerged a minute later, and like Abe, she seemed shocked by Devon's presence. Abe did not give her time to comment on it, however, and spoke to Devon with her as translator. "So what happened, and why would you come here?"

"We were undergoing the rites of passage to bond with a banshee," he replied. "The kid screwed up her technique and got bitten, and thrown off a cliff. We couldn't treat her on site, so I was instructed to bring her here."

Abe looked back at the banshee. "You're kidding me, right? They sent out a kid to wrestle with one of those?"

Devon nodded. "They still haven't really recovered from the pounding they took a decade ago, and hunters die every so often in the jungle; so they're eager to train up new hunters and warriors." He paused and said, "I assume you've figured out that they've been supplied with machine guns."

"Jake showed up with a few of them when we met," he replied. "But Norm and his crew wiped the production logs clean, so I don't know how many they have. Do you have a good count?"

"Somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty," he said with a shrug, "but probably more. Jake hand picks the ones who can carry guns, and they train off in a field that only a few can get near while they're training."

Dawn interrupted her translations to say, "We've got a lot of conversations on the surveillance drone's logs. My guess is that we can get a count or some information from them."

Abe nodded. "So what _is_ your standing with our native friends at this point?"

"I'm going to guess that my stock will rise with this turn of events," he replied. "But I'm not one of their hunters, much less a trusted warrior."

Abe was about to ask another question when Devon and Dawn became engaged in their own conversation. He gave a sharp look at Dawn. "Do you want to loop your boss in?"

She blushed. "Um, it's kind of personal."

He crossed his arms. "There is nothing personal when I'm a party to the conversation. What are you going on about?"

"I was just asking – You know, now that he's going to be a great hero if he's ready to be hounded by women."

"And I was just telling her…" Devon began.

"Hey!" Abe said, interrupting Devon's slip into English. "His getting _inappropriately_," he made sure to emphasize, "tied down would very much be something I would want to know about, so why would that be personal for you?" She looked down. Devon took a deep breath and looked away.

Abe closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "When?"

"Right before he left the ship, Boss," Dawn confessed.

He sighed. "I'll ask why later." Abe had dealt with interoffice relationships before – his marriage itself began as such – but he was nowhere in the mood to take it up now. "In the meantime, Devon," he continued, "you had damned well keep it in your pants – or your loincloth or whatever – because I will be more than happy to leave you here if you get tied down with the locals. Do you understand?"

"_Srane_."

"Are you mated?"

"No."

"Any prospects?"

Devon hesitated. "No."

"Keep it that way." Abe sighed before he continued. "Anything else you want to report?"

"Jake's got people gunning for his job. They're not a serious threat, but they're not background noise, either."

"Really?" Devon nodded. "Work on that." He was about to delve into the topic further when his conversation was broken by high-pitched screeches in the sky. Abe and the others looked up and saw a flight of banshees circling overhead, preparing to land. A banshee carrying two Na'vi – one older, one younger – was the first on the ground. The older Na'vi dismounted and made swift strides towards Devon.

They had a quick conversation, at the end of which the older Na'vi patted Devon on the shoulder, and then indicated that he should leave. Keeping to his cover, Devon walked way to mount his banshee without so much as looking back at Abe; and when he departed, the others – all of whom, Abe noted, were about as young as the injured Na'vi – flew away.

The remaining Na'vi looked down at Abe and, with a thick accent, asked, "Where is Norm?"

"He's inside with the child."

"Go get him."

"May I ask…"

"No."

Abe nodded and walked towards the airlock, indicating to Dawn that she should follow. As they walked down the hallway, Abe pulled her into a side room, shut the door, and said, "Now I know there wasn't enough time for you to get acquainted and jump his bones right after we came out of cryo, so I assume it was after the body switch. Am I right?"

She sighed and grinned. "What can I say, Boss?" she replied. "It's been a fantasy of mine for a long time."

He was slightly taken aback by her candor, but he could not help but chuckle. He also shook his head. "Well, I hope you got satisfaction," he said, managing a semblance of seriousness in his tone. "The last thing he needs right now is to get mixed signals from a woman."

Dawn let out a short laugh. "I'm sure he knows it was a one time…"

"No," Abe interrupted, now very serious. "The next time – any time, for that matter – you establish two-way comms with him, don't even dare to bring it up. Not even if he does. Make it like it never happened. If he gets 'frustrated,' and then if he decides to get over his frustrations by mating with a Na'vi, we're going to have another Jake Sully on our hands. We don't need that. Am I clear?"

She nodded. "Absolutely, Boss."

* * *

It was not the first funeral that Jake had presided over. Na'vi died of old age; more than a few hunters had made miscalculations; warriors trained too realistically; arachnoids stung the sleeping – and careless – young and old. But today's funeral seemed more sorrowful, as it was the first time under Jake's watch that a young Na'vi died on _Iknimaya_.

Norm and his team had stabilized Uneyil long enough for Neytiri to fly to Hell's Gate and be with her in her last moments, but she had lost too much blood. The poor circulation to her lower leg allowed gangrene to set in, and then she succumbed to sepsis. Neytiri had tried to cleanse and prepare the body at Hell's Gate in order to make appear as it had been in life, but the ritual prohibited any unnatural elements from corrupting the grave; and so her work could only do so much to mask the circumstances of Uneyil's death.

Neytiri performed the bulk of the ritual with her acolytes. Ninat, whom many years ago Neytiri had recommended to Jake as the tribe's best singer, led the mourning songs as Neytiri dropped an atokirina' into the shallow grave, after which Jake and Mo'at carefully piled earth over the young body. The atokirina' would sprout the roots that would absorb the body, and then connect to the intricate network of life moderated by Eywa's energy.

Despite the end of the ritual, where Neytiri emphasized that Uneyil was now a part of the energy channeled by Eywa to all living things, it appeared to bring little comfort to the assembled Na'vi.

Gradually, the solemn congregation disbanded. Jake and Neytiri lingered as, unexpectedly, did Mu'kuti, his eyes fixed on the fresh grave.

Jake walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "I see you, Brother."

Mu'kuti snapped out of his trance. "I see you, _Olo'eyktan_," he said, then nodded at Neytiri. "And you, _Tsahik_."

Neytiri shook her head. "Sister," she corrected. "For what you tried to do for Uneyil, you are my brother, just as she is your sister in Eywa." He nodded slowly, but she did not appear to have consoled him. She brushed her hand over his cheek. "You could not have done anything more," she said. "Even the Sky People's machines could not prevent this. This is the destiny we all have."

He sighed. "We are all hunters, right?" She nodded. "All hunters must go on _Iknimaya_, right?" Again, she nodded. "Then why is the rite of passage so perilous?"

"The dangers of the jungle are just as great as facing untamed _ikran_. You must show courage in the face of that danger before you can hunt."

"She had courage," he said with a nod at the grave. He shook his head. "She was only too young." He looked at the earth and sighed. "I'm sorry," he said, and then walked away.

Jake saw that Neytiri was lost for a response. He wrapped his arms about her waist and said, "Everybody mourns differently. He will be okay."

"I know," she said. "But everyone knows the purpose of _Iknimaya_."

He sighed. "Death can sometimes shake people's beliefs."

Neytiri turned in his arms. "It is not _death_," she said with a hint of frustration. "She is not gone. Uneyil is a part of the energy that flows through all of us."

"I know," he replied. "But it's one thing to be with someone in the flesh, it's another thing to be with them in spirit."

She shook her head. "The two are the same." She took her hands in his and nodded at the grave. "We should leave, now." He agreed without words, and the two walked back towards Hometree.

Along the way, Neytiri sighed and said, "The irritating one was there when Uneyil shed her body."

"Abe?" She nodded. "What did he want?"

Neytiri shook her head. "He stood there silently and watched," she said. "It was very strange. I could not tell if he was sad, or if he just wanted to see it. He did not say a word until I told him to leave so I could prepare the body. He said was that he wanted talk with us again, and then he left."

"Did he say why?"

"No, and I don't care. I will not see him again."

Jake sighed. "We can't ignore him," he said. "If we can learn more about his plans, we can prepare our defenses."

"And he wants to learn about us to defeat us," she said, giving him a disapproving look. "The Sky People have done this before."

"If they want to do the same thing that got them defeated the last time, I'm all for it," he replied.

There was a long silence between the two, broken when Neytiri asked, "You will speak with him?" Jake nodded, and she shook her head. "I will not." She paused and put a hand on his shoulder. "Be careful, Jake. I don't trust him."

"Neither do I," he replied. "I just don't know how to fight him off, yet."


	12. Exploit

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Blizzards are fine excuses to resume writing.

* * *

Norm, like the other avatar drivers, had taken one of the habmod's formerly-exclusive executive suites as his quarters. When he arrived on Pandora, these were the domain of Parker and the RDA leadership overseeing the operation on Pandora; now, Abe and his team were cast down into the common crew quarters.

Like he had been for the last several nights, Norm tried to distract his thoughts by pouring over the research notes that had languished ever since RDA's exile. However, as he flipped from one set of field reports to the next – most bearing Doctor Augustine's signature – he could not help but think to the young Na'vi girl whose life he failed to save.

Neytiri had tried to comfort him with assurances that there was nothing he could have done to prevent Eywa's will. He knew it was her deeply held belief that death was inevitable, and that there was no way to explain to her _his_ deeply held belief that, with a proper supply of blood packs and antibiotics, the child's death would have been far from inevitable.

Norm was furiously scanning Doctor Augustine's notes for any references to the medicinal properties of Pandora's flora. He was not trying to replay Uneyil's treatment, but each time he saw Uneyil's body, he could also see the bodies of the children his colleagues were raising. Despite the comforts they still enjoyed in the otherwise dilapidated complex, Pandora was no less dangerous.

He was shaken out of his research by an insistent knock on his door. He powered down the multitude of tablets and went to his visitor. "Max, I thought you had better things to do this late," he called through the door – he had no reason to expect anyone else.

Norm was surprised to see Amy when he opened the door. "He probably does," she said with a smile. "May I come in? Or is this not a good time?"

"I thought we had a rule," he replied.

"We do," she said with a nod, "but is it fraternization to just check up on someone?"

"Why would you check up on me?"

"You put a lot of effort into treating that Na'vi girl," she replied. "And you've been distant ever since." He was about to respond that he was just keeping distance from her group, but she quickly added, "That's coming from your teammates."

He sighed and stepped aside. "Come on in."

Amy casually entered the suite and looked around. "Nice place," she said as he closed the door behind her. Then she turned, grinned and asked, "What's the rent?"

Norm snorted. "Whatever it is," he said, "I'm sure RDA will send me a bill for it when I'm in jail."

"You're not worth the trouble of getting sent to jail," she replied. "I can pretty much guarantee that RDA wouldn't want to risk what you or the others would say up on the witness stand."

"Who says there'd be a trial?"

Amy sat on one of the sofas in the living quarters and held her hands out defensively. "It's no secret that corporations pretty much own the government," she said. "But when it comes to criminal law, they at least have to have a mock trial."

Norm sat opposite of her. "Yeah, well, we'll see what happens." He paused to briefly entertain a number of scenarios, but he just as readily shook them off. "So, you wanted to 'check in' on me?"

"Yes, but I was also wondering if you'd given any more thought to my offer."

"Now's really not a good time to be asking that," he said as he crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat.

Amy sighed. "I don't want to hurt the Na'vi," she said. "You obviously care for them very deeply, or else you wouldn't be so broken up over the little girl's death – and there's nothing wrong with that. But instead of wondering what you could have done to save her life, help me make sure that I'm not going to make any mistakes that cost other Na'vi their lives."

"Why do you think you need my help, though?" he asked. "I mean, you said yourself that this is your field of expertise."

"And, like I said, I probably could come up with something that meets the boss' requirements without endangering the Na'vi," she replied. "However, building a strategy like this is only as effective as the intel that goes into it – and you're the expert on that. I'd rather spend more time applying your knowledge than get myself read up to the same level."

Norm shook his head. "First of all, I didn't study Na'vi military tactics. Second, if I did…"

"I'm not interested in their battle tactics," she interrupted. "I want to avoid the point that it comes down to fighting."

He took in a deep breath, near the point of exasperation. "Colonel…"

"Amy," she said with a smile. "I'm a civilian, now."

"Amy," he corrected. "I can tell you everything you need to know right now." She raised an eyebrow. "One: The Na'vi don't want you here. Two: There's nothing you have at your disposal that can change their minds."

"Well, we aren't going to give up without trying," she replied. "We have a dying planet to think about."

He wanted to tell her again that the Na'vi were not going to simply roll over because Earth and humanity were on the precipice of catastrophe. Much to the contrary, they would welcome the news of humanity's extinction – the ultimate sign that they no longer had to fear the Sky People.

However, as they sat staring at each other in silence, he could tell by her expression and the intensity in her eyes that she was not going to back down; that she may be a civilian, but she was still duty-bound.

Norm sighed. "All right." He held up a finger and added, "But if I don't like where you're going with the information, I'm out. And we don't talk again about anything."

Amy nodded. "I can live with that." She stood up to leave. "I know you don't trust me, but I don't want to see the Na'vi wiped out. That isn't the legacy I want."

He shook his head. "I believe you," he replied. "I just don't think it's your decision."

* * *

Jake brought Rawke to land on Hell's Gate's overgrown tarmac, where Abe, Norm, and two others waited in front of a significantly modified Samson tiltrotor craft. He dismounted, and walked towards Abe. "You didn't mention anything about the hardware," he said with a nod towards the aircraft. "Much less the firepower."

The Samson had been modified with an extended airframe to accommodate the missile pods of the Scorpion gunship – and the pods were loaded.

"I did say that I had something big to show you," Abe replied. He turned to the two unknown men standing to his right. "This is Miguel, my hardware specialist, and Doctor Matthew Cook, my xenobotanist."

Miguel struck Jake as one of many grease monkeys and rotor drivers he met in the Corps. Matthew looked like the many doctors who had shuffled him through his rehabilitation all those years ago.

"They're part of today's demonstration," Abe continued. "So, do you want to ride with us, or—?" he trailed off with a nod towards the _ikran_.

"Where are we going?" Jake asked.

"The primary mining site."

He walked back towards Rawke. "I'll see you there."

RDA's primary mining site was three square miles of desolation in the heart of the lush Pandoran jungle. While Hell's Gate was thoroughly reclaimed by wildlife, the pit remained barren. So many chemicals had been applied to extract unobtanium that only the most robust plants could take root; and those were few and far between. It was the fate that had been shared by the Appalachians when, in a panic at the end of the Oil Era, the government poured its resources into extracting every last ounce of coal from those mountains. It had even sold off the Shenandoah Valley piece by piece to energy giants to expedite the process. The once majestic mountains now had more craters than the Moon.

Where the plants could not take hold, however, the heavy and frequent jungle rains had done their work to corrode the long-abandoned machinery that lay strewn about the open pit.

Jake landed near the rim of the crater, and moments later the modified Samson flew overhead. Rawke screeched at it, but Jake patted him and, through their bond, urged him to be calm. The craft landed a few yards away from him, where Abe, Norm, and Matthew disembarked.

"I've seen weapons tests before," Jake said when they were in earshot. "If you're going to try to intimidate me—," he let his voice trail off.

Abe shook his head. "It's more like a science experiment," he replied. He fit a headset over the mask of his exopack and spoke into the microphone, "All right, you've got a green light."

The Samson lifted off and made a quick trip to the opposite end of the mining pit. It tilted down towards one of the pit's faces, and then moments later fired its payload. Rather than explode on impact, Jake noted that the rockets' warheads fragmented in the nature of an anti-personnel device. However, when he expected those fragments to explode, there were only dull thuds and minor plumes of dirt.

"Payload expended, Boss," Jake heard from Abe's headset. "Coming back to pick you up."

A few minutes later, Jake and the others assembled around the targeted area. Other than the torn-up dirt, Jake was pressed to see anything noteworthy. "This is the most boring science experiment I've ever seen," he said. "Do you want to tell me what's going on and why I should be here?"

"Hold on a second," Matthew responded as he dug through the dirt. "Aha!" he said a moment later. "I think we have a result." The doctor motioned for Jake to kneel beside him, which he reluctantly did. It took him a second to focus on what the doctor had been so excited about, but then he saw a seedling emerge from the soil.

He took a quick look around the target site, and saw seedlings emerging all about him.

"They're anemonids," Matthew said. "We've been researching them on Earth to reclaim toxic soil, but introducing them over large areas has been problematic. We're also going to try out baja ticklers for sequestering atmospheric pollutants, but first we need to toughen up their seeds."

"Why are they growing so quickly?" Jake asked.

"They take too long to take root on Earth, so we developed an accelerant for the pods we placed in the delivery system. They won't grow this quickly on Earth – they're just responding more effectively to their native environment."

"Reclamation projects are some of the biggest contracts the government has to offer," Abe said, getting ahead of Jake's next question. "If we can perfect this method, we're in good shape to land a sole source contract with the government." Jake was less than won over by the profiteering, and Abe must have picked up on that. He smiled and said, "To say nothing of the obvious environmental benefits."

"Of course," he replied with a snort. "So why are you showing this to me?"

"Neytiri – and I guess most of you – are of the impression that we're just going to tear up Pandora and leave nothing behind," he said. "I wanted to show her that we're just as interested in preserving her world as ours, but I take it she didn't want to see me again."

"_T'ngyute_," Jake replied with a chuckle. Abe raised an eyebrow. "That's her name for you. Roughly, 'The Irritating One.'"

Abe nodded slowly, grinned, and then shrugged. "I guess I've been called worse."

"Jake," Norm interrupted, "don't buy the corporate line. This is old bullshit. The carbon offset scam was the biggest hoax of the Twenty First century. A bunch of corporations said that they were planting trees in exchange for tearing down the ones already in place to keep business as usual 'sustainable.'" He snorted. "Look at how well that turned out. Don't even get me started on carbon sequestration."

Abe shot him a disapproving look. "It might well have helped if those corporations had actually planted the trees rather than hand off their money to scam artists or non-profits with no auditing. Trust me, if the government will put up tens of billions of dollars for us to reclaim the Shenandoah or the Sierras, RDA will deliver a forest."

Norm shook his head and wandered back to the Samson.

Jake was also shaking his head. "The People aren't going to tolerate you guys tearing up their forest on the hopes that you'll replant it later. Honestly, how long would that take, anyway?"

"We could probably reseed this area in about a month," Matthew said.

"But seedlings aren't a forest. How long before a forest grows back here?"

Matthew frowned and shrugged. "Thirty or forty years," he said. "Or at least the basics of one."

Jake nodded and stood. "Sorry, Abe. This is a good step to build trust with the People, but this isn't going to win them over. You can't plant over history."

As he walked back towards Rawke, Abe said, "There's one other thing I was hoping to talk to you about."

"Yeah?"

"I know I hit a sore spot with Neytiri when I asked about whether or not you had kids…"

Jake held a hand up to interrupt him. "Not your business, Abe," he said sternly.

"Your brother was the scientist, but I have a feeling you know what's wrong."

His instinct told him to keep walking and force an end to the conversation, but his mind began to race with consequences of not at least entertaining further discussion. He sighed and said, "I tried to explain to her a while ago that I may have too much human blood left in my body. She said that's not possible, since Eywa blessed our mating."

"We can always run tests to find out," Abe said. He nodded towards Matthew. "Doctor Cook has a theory, and maybe even a cure."

Jake chuckled and said, "Is the government offering hundreds of billions of dollars for one of my children?"

Abe grinned. "I may be much shorter than you are," he said, "but I'm no Rumpelstiltskin. I'm not after your first-born."

"But you're after something."

"Consider this one a personal interest," he replied. "I know what it means to have a child. If you want to have a life here, fine. You shouldn't have to have your human past get in the way of that."

Jake took in a deep breath and looked at Norm for a reaction. As he could have guessed, Norm looked more than a little disapproving. "What will Neytiri say when you tell her that her child is thanks to _T'ngyute_?"

"Are you going to call me that from now on?" Abe asked. Norm just shrugged. He looked at Jake and said, "Just let us run a few tests. That way you'll know for sure, and then, one way or another, give Neytiri peace of mind."

Jake was silent for most of a minute while he considered the proposal. He agreed with Norm that Neytiri would be less than thrilled to know that her children were the result of Sky People's science than Eywa's blessings; but he knew that she was becoming just as frustrated as he was that they had yet to conceive a child. He sighed and replied, "How long until you'll know something?"

* * *

Abe called up the communications terminal from his office and accessed the wormhole. "Is anybody else here?" he asked.

"We're all here, Abe," Chairman Savage replied. "What news do you have for us?"

"We tested out the reclamation project about a week ago, and it looks like we're on the right track to getting that sole source contract. Tom, can I transfer files through this wormhole?"

"Yes, Abe. Your station should be able to detect RDA's central servers."

"Okay, I'm sending schematics your way."

"A few billion dollars to satisfy some hippies is great," the chairman said, "but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the main project. How's that coming?"

"Our engineers have finished their preliminary assessment of the refinery," he replied. "They're estimating that it will take two or three years to get back up and running at full capacity."

"Assuming our people aren't harassed by the aliens. Where are you on that?"

"Colonel Hall is still working up our counterinsurgency strategy," he replied. "It's months away from being finalized."

"Abe," the chairman said with a sigh, and Abe presumed as he rubbed his temples, "the shareholders are getting impatient. We have our annual meeting next month, and I can't go in front of them and say that our plan is still a draft."

"With all due respect, Mister Chairman, our plan is more than _just_ a counterinsurgency. Besides, SecOps is still nine months away, with the miners a month behind. They're going to have to be patient one way or another."

"I know that," the chairman said. "But the shareholders are impatient. The rest of the Board is impatient. Remember, it's been eleven years since this fiasco started."

"I am aware of that, sir," Abe replied with a sigh. "But if you can set aside the SecOps plan, I have a bit more you can give to the shareholders that might keep RDA's stock floating."

The meeting lasted well over two hours, despite Abe's attempts to keep the meeting brief. Tom had arranged to keep the wormhole open longer than their previous engagements for Abe's personal use.

At the meeting's end, Tom said, "It sounds like you've kept busy."

"I think it would count as one of the Labors of Hercules," Abe said with a chuckle.

"So when are you going to venture forth to steal the Na'vi's girdle?" Tom asked with a laugh.

He couldn't help but laugh. "Jesus, Tom," Abe said when he could catch his breath. "Neytiri's no Hippolyta, and unfortunately I don't think I've left enough of an impression to get her to just hand it over."

"Would that you could?"

"No, Tom." He took a deep breath to recover his focus. "Come on, we're wasting time."

"You're right," Tom said. "Just give me one second – I'll get you to Megara."

Abe suffered through the silence for two minutes until he heard, "Abe?"

He smiled and said, "Hey, stranger."

"Abe!" Krysta exclaimed. "Hey, stranger."

He was going to respond, when he heard, "Hi, Dad!"

Abe paused. "Natalie?"

"Yup."

He was taken aback. The last time he had heard her voice, she was half asleep, worn down by medical tests, and young. The girl talking to him now seemed like a whole other person. "Hey, Sweetie. How are you?"

"You didn't recognize me, did you?" she asked. She did not sound bitter, but clearly she had tapped in to her parents' gifts of intuition.

"You were nine when I left," he replied with a chuckle. "I guess you're getting ready for your fifteenth birthday, huh?"

"Kind of. It's still a few months away."

"Are you, um—," he struggled with a lump in his throat.

"I'm not sick anymore – or, well, as sick I guess," she replied.

Krysta explained, "We were able to enroll in a clinical trial for a new genetic therapy, and there hasn't been any metastasizing since you left." She took a breath and continued, "In fact, this past summer Natalie took silver in the regional swim competition in both backstroke and breaststroke."

"I was one-tenth of a second away from gold in both," Natalie replied, clearly disappointed.

Abe smiled, glad that she was also displaying her parents' competitive nature. "I'm still proud of you, Sweetie. Just get the gold next year."

"Next year I'm in a new age group, so I doubt it." She was also presenting the lack of tact common to all teenagers, as well as sudden mood swings. "So what's Pandora like?" she asked without a hint of the gloom she had expressed a moment earlier.

"Well, it's warm, green, has lots of trees…"

"Have you met the Na'vi?" she interrupted, her voice now full of excitement.

He chuckled. "Yes, I have." He paused. "Seze is safely home."

"What are they like?"

Abe's took a moment to think about his response. "They're cautious around people," he settled on saying. "And they're very tall. It's a little intimidating." Even though, for him, it had only been a few months since he last saw Natalie, Abe was acutely aware that she had lived half-again her life in his absence. He wanted to know more about that life. "Are you doing well in school?"

"I'm studying Na'vi as an elective," she said. "I'm actually in the advanced class, because I've been studying it since you were around."

Krysta let out a laugh. "Natalie has decided that she wants to be a xenobotanist on Pandora after graduate school."

Abe had a quick flashback to the young Na'vi who died almost a month earlier, except it was Natalie laying there, bleeding out from banshee bites. He was horrified. Fortunately, Natalie corrected her mother. "I haven't _decided_," she said. "I just think it would be really cool."

"Well, you still have a long time to decide," he offered. "Who knows what you'll find cool down the road."

"When did you know that you wanted to go to Pandora?" she asked.

"It – It kind of just happened. What else are you…"

"Is it four thirty already?" Krysta asked, interrupting him.

Abe paused. "The wormhole is open until five."

"What? Oh, sorry, Natalie has swim practice – her transport is here. We expected your meeting to be over sooner."

"Sorry, Dad, I have to go." She did not sound half as broken up about it as he was.

"No, it's okay," he said, trying to mask a sigh. "You have to win the gold next year."

"Okay. Bye, Dad!"

"Bye, Natalie." He took a deep breath and waited until he was sure she was gone. "Five years and she talks more about Pandora than me."

"She's come to terms with missing you," Krysta said. "She thinks by going to Pandora, or wanting to go, she'll be closer to you."

"It's the last possible thing I want her to do," he replied. "Nobody should ever want to come here."

She let out a laugh. "That great, huh?"

"The Na'vi hate us, the planet is inhospitable, and we're grasping for straws—," he chuckled, "—which on this planet probably have some kind of neurotoxin that will kill you before you realize you've been injected."

"Sounds wonderful." She sighed. "You're going to be okay, just take it a step at a time."

He laughed. "When have I ever taken on one thing at a time?"

* * *

Mu'kuti walked back from the practice range for the clan feast. He was initiated into the tribe not only for taming an _ikran_, but also for his efforts to save Uneyil – despite the outcome. As such, he was allowed to craft his spear, shield, and bow from the wood of Hometree. He was also expected to hone his skills as a hunter, either through hunts or rigorous training.

He had ventured out a few times for local, solo hunts for small game – which also served as an excuse to make the occasional report to base – but increasingly he was assigned to small teams of hunters. The clan spoke excitedly about the return of the sturmbeest herds, and they were eager to practice the teamwork necessary to take down the massive animals.

Occasionally, a weakened or sick sturmbeest had come within the Omaticaya's range, but most of the animals were still too far to the north to organize a large hunting party. However, tonight the clan was more than happy to consume what remained of the last sturmbeest to wander by. Those hunters who had taken the beast down were given the honor of the first cuts of meat, and from there it was a communal serving.

Mu'kuti, however, was more interested in locating his target for the night.

He found Khutxo sitting with his cohorts outside of the main group around their own, smaller fire pit. They spotted him coming from a distance, and while Khutxo remained seated, his entourage stood to challenge Mu'kuti.

He ignored them. "I see you, warrior."

"Do you?" he asked with his brow raised. "Do you also see my friends?"

"Can I not also be one of your friends?"

"I guess we'll find out," he responded with a crooked smile. "Please, sit with us." He nodded and did as instructed, and the others sat around him, eyeing him warily. "Your name is Mu'kuti, right?"

"Yes," he said with a nod.

"Eywa's sisters have moved about the sky a great deal since you stumbled in here, and we have accepted you as one of our own," he said, and then he paused. "But I'm not the only one to wonder if you have accepted us in turn."

Mu'kuti raised his brow. "What do you mean?"

"You don't speak with many people, and you seem reluctant to participate in the ceremonies," he said with a shrug. "I see you sometimes with a few of the healers and acolytes, but then not very often."

"The only time I saw you before now," one of the others said, "was when you threw down Nakllte." She smiled and said in a lowered voice, "That's why I am very fond of you."

The group laughed, and Mu'kuti smiled. "He ordered me to attack him," he said. "So I did."

"That you did!" the female said. "I think most have just let him win and then suffer through his rambling lectures. I was impressed."

Khutxo nodded and pointed at her. "Fyatia's opinion is very highly regarded," he said. "She is a fierce hunter—," he paused to lean forward and touch the bones on the necklace she wore, "—these are from the _palulukan _she chased down after it killed one of her friends." He turned his attention to another warrior, putting a hand on his shoulder. "When the Sky People attacked, Iläie's _ikran_ was murdered in flight. As it fell, dying, he leapt into a _kunsip_ and threw the Sky People within down after his _ikran_."

"I wanted to turn the _kunsip_ against the Sky People," he said, "but I could not find where I was supposed to make _tsaheylu_."

The group laughed again. "You don't make _tsaheylu_ with the Sky People's animals," one of them said.

"I didn't know that at the time!" Iläie said in his defense.

"How did you get out of the _kunsip_?" Mu'kuti asked.

He shrugged. "I waited for it to fall into the jungle. Unlike many of the others, it did not turn into fire. It just fell to pieces – and broke my legs."

"I pulled him back to our camp after the battle," Khutxo said. "I could go to every one of my brothers and sisters here and talk about their accomplishments," he continued. "But what can I say about you?"

Mu'kuti nodded. "I see your point."

Khutxo's eyes narrowed. "Why did you think you could come sit with us, and be called our friend?" he asked pointedly.

He took a deep breath. "I remember what you said when _olo'eyktan_ announced the return of the Sky People. At first, I thought the same way Nakllte and the others did – that you were too aggressive. But then I saw where they live, and what they are capable of. Now I think you're right."

"I'm glad you've seen the truth," he replied with a nod. "And I'm glad that you've sought me out. But you have much to do before I will call you my friend."

"I understand," he said as he stood. "Thank you for your time."

"We may talk again later. For now, go find the ones who do call you their friend."

Mu'kuti left Khutxo's group, and it was not long before he did find one of his friends. Tseyo took him by the arm and led him farther from the main group. "I saw you sitting with Khutxo," he said. "What did he want with you?"

"Nothing," he said with a shrug. "I sought him out."

Tseyo looked baffled. "Why would you do that?"

"I wanted to tell him that I have come around to his way of thinking about the Sky People."

"None of us like the Sky People," Tseyo replied. "But they are too few and too weak to make war against. The kind of violence he wants goes against Eywa's will."

"I saw their capabilities, friend," he said. "They are dangerous, even the few of them."

Tseyo shook his head. "Jakesully knows the Sky People's ways," he replied. "We must trust him to lead us through this."

"It's not that I don't trust the _olo'eyktan_," he replied. "I don't think that we should be so quick to set aside other ways of handling the Sky People."

"And you think the way is to attack them, even the ones who are helping us to prepare our defenses?"

"I think the way is to show them our seriousness, our commitment to our land."

"It's dangerous to talk like this, Mu'kuti," he replied. "Jakesully has made the decision, and Khutxo does not need to be encouraged to challenge him."

"I'm not trying to cause trouble, friend. But this is my home, now, and I want it to be safe."

"It will be safe," Tseyo said. "Just walk carefully, and mind where your tail may drag."

* * *

Almost a month had passed since Norm agreed to advise Amy about the ways of the Na'vi, but as he scanned through her report – or at least the parts of it she let him see – he felt like it had all been a waste.

"You're projecting too much humanity onto them," he said. "The way you're expecting them to react to these scenarios—." He sighed. "It's just all wrong."

"Where have I gone wrong?" she asked somewhat impetuously. "What have I made 'too human' about them?"

"Your assumptions about their ambitions," he replied. "They _aspire_, but they don't plot. A Na'vi may want to be a great hunter _personally_, and through that greatness be recognized as a leader among the tribe. But appealing to their desires is like appealing to vanity, which they don't respect at all."

"You said they live in a rigidly hierarchical society," she protested. "Why wouldn't the leadership want to reinforce its authority?"

"No, it's egalitarian with strong deference to the spiritual and warrior leaders. Tribal leaders are like the monarchs in the Middle Ages," he said. "They commanded power because people believed they were ordained by God. For the Na'vi, the tribe's leaders are viewed has having been exceptionally endowed by Eywa, and so are deeply respected. If you could divide their society into classes, there would be two – the _olo'eyktan_ and _tsahik_, who can sometimes be one in the same, and then everybody else."

"Again, why wouldn't the leaders want to reinforce their authority with, say, projects that improve the lives of the lower class?"

"It's not a 'lower' class! Besides, the _tsahik_s and_ olo'eyktan_s don't think they're running a scam – they also believe that they are richly endowed by Eywa and serve as vessels for channeling Eywa's will. They don't need any reinforcement."

"So what's the check on their power?" she asked impatiently. "How do the rest of the Na'vi know that they're under good leadership or bad leadership?"

"Signs provided to them by Eywa," he said with a shrug. "As long as hunters come back with plentiful food, children are born without deformity, and the tribe is at peace with other tribes, they're in good shape. They don't need anything else."

"What's good can always be made better," she said while standing up. "I'm not talking about urban development, just simple farms and domestication for crying out loud!"

"The Na'vi don't see themselves as lords over Pandora. They are a part of it. They don't have the right to dictate when or where plants will grow or where animals will graze."

"But!" she said, pointing a finger at him. "But they do tame direhorses and banshees for an array of purposes. That indicates superiority over at least some animals."

Norm shook his head. "Eywa gave them a queue to allow them to bond," he replied. "They aren't doing anything Eywa hasn't permitted in the natural order."

She threw up her hands and sat back down beside him. "I think you're being unreasonably stubborn about all this," she said.

Norm sighed. "You're assuming that the Na'vi are on the brink of an evolutionary advance," he said, "so you want to drop down a monolith to give them a kick in the pants."

"I don't think going from Paleolithic to Neolithic is too much to ask," she replied.

"Not all societies have to evolve on the same path as human society. We developed farming because our growing seasons were otherwise unpredictable. Eywa provides everything they need, year-round. There is nothing imbalanced in their world." He paused and added, "Nothing other than some short, hairy animals who are trying to tear it all down."

She sighed and rubbed her temples. "Not the misanthropy again."

"It's not misanthropic to say that our goal is to destroy their world," he protested.

"That's not my goal!" she said. "You're assuming humans are incapable of progress without destruction."

"Because we've done such a great job of it so far."

Amy paused and shook her head. "You know, I'll tell you the mistake I made. I thought that you were at least interested in giving humanity a hand." She reached over and powered down her tablet. "You're only in it for the Na'vi."

"That's not true at all," he said. "I want to protect the Na'vi and keep us from making the same mistakes that we've made one too many times."

"I'm trying to do that, too," she replied. "But all I'm getting from you is, 'Nope, can't do this or that, or you'll piss off Eywa.'" He took his hand. "_Give_ me something, Norm."

Norm was startled by her touch, but he did not resist it. "We don't have anything they want," he said. "Jake came to the same conclusion after Quaritch sent him out to do the same kind of thing you're doing, so Parker went out and just took what he wanted from them." He hesitated before saying, "Abe's going to get pushed into the same corner – if he's not already there."

"The boss – Abe—," she shook her head. "Forget about him for now. What do you want to see happen, here?" He was about to respond, but she preempted him and said, "Realistically."

"Realistically?" She nodded. "I want people back home to see that we're not the ones supposed to be teaching the Na'vi – the Na'vi are supposed to be teaching us." He let out a short laugh. "You know, I didn't just spend years studying the Na'vi only so I could qualify for the Avatar program and come up here to stop RDA. I wanted to use that knowledge back home."

He stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. "We can still fix Earth, but first we have to sacrifice the status quo. We have to make hard decisions. The Na'vi are showing us what the end result can be if we could open our eyes to it."

"Different evolutionary path, Norm," she said from the sofa. "Maybe we're hardwired to be reliant on technology."

"Then we have to use it smarter," he said. "I came here to see what that could be like, but then off went Jake. He falls face first into the Na'vi, full of ulterior motives, and they accept him for it." His voice began to rise in intensity. "But here I am with the rest of the avatar drivers, ready to learn from the Na'vi with open arms, and what do I get? I get a target painted on my back.

"Even after we decided to stay here, to keep them safe – completely abandoning any chance of returning to our old lives – they kept on viewing us as enemies." He let out a laugh. "I bet it's because they think Jake gave up his humanity when he gave up his body, you know? 'Whew! We don't have to pander to _Toruk Makto_'s human half anymore, let's get the fuck out of here!'"

"Maybe we should get off this subject," she offered.

He pressed on. "But he's still human, though. He can't have a kid because of it, and they're still willing to ignore it. So why can't they accept the rest of us?"

Amy went to him and put her hands on his shoulders. "I don't know, Norm, but you can't get stuck on that. I mean, look at what you _have_ done here. You've kept _your_ people alive against impossible odds." She chuckled. "We figured you would all be dead when we got here."

Norm shook his head. "They're just fine taking care of themselves. I just have the line to Jake, so—," his voice trailed off. "They have their own lives. I'm not in charge of them."

"You're not just some relay station to them. You've got a good mind and a good heart, and they respect you for that." She smiled and added, "I respect you for that."

"Thanks, but that only goes so far."

"What else are you looking for?"

"She, um—," he sighed and looked away. "Nothing," he said. "It's not…"

"She?" Amy pressed. "'She' couldn't have been nothing," she insisted, putting a hand on his cheek and turning his head back towards her. "Talk to me."

"She wasn't interested," Norm replied. "Neither are the rest of them."

Amy nodded slowly. "I'm interested," she offered.

He tried to look away again, but she kept him fixed. He took in a deep breath and placed his hands on her shoulders. He could have pushed her away – no large part of him wanted to – but instead he brought her close. Norm's heart raced as he leaned forward and she wrapped her arms around him.

They hesitated when their lips first brushed against each other, but it was quick to pass.

* * *

Jake sat at the field receiver. "I'm here, Norm."

"I've got Abe," he replied.

"Jake, I'm going to cut to the chase," Abe said. "It came back as human. I'm sorry, but there's no way you're going to have a child with Neytiri."

Jake sighed. He had figured it out years before, but hearing it gave his intuition an unwelcome finality. "All right, well, that sucks," he said after a moment to ponder how he would – if he would – tell Neytiri. "Thanks, Abe."

There was a pause on the other end. "So that's it?" Abe asked. "You're just going to let it go?"

"There isn't much I can do about it, now is there?"

"You don't really think it took us a month to get these results back, do you?"

"No," Jake said. "So why don't you _really_ cut to the chase, Abe?"

"Doctor Cook thinks he's got a way to help you out," Abe said. "He's spent the last month working through the procedure, and he thinks it's viable."

"Norm, what do you think?"

"I haven't seen the procedure," he said. "But I can guarantee you that it's bullshit. They didn't come all the way out here to give you a child out of the goodness of their hearts."

Jake nodded. "I agree."

Abe sighed. "Male fertility rates on Earth have plummeted, and conventional treatments aren't working."

"So Earth is worried about _underpopulation_ now?" Jake asked. "That's a tough sell."

"There's no point in trying to work for a better tomorrow if there won't be anybody around to see it," Abe replied. "Can you think of a worse future for Earth? Everybody throwing their hands up and saying, 'To hell with it, because what does it matter?'"

"I'm not sure if that really does matter at this point," Jake said.

"C'mon, Jake. I know you can't have pushed humanity that far back in your mind."

"Maybe," Jake said. "But what do you get for being the savior of future generations? Another government contract?"

"Possibly," Abe said. "Or at least a lot of private buyers. But so what? Maybe I just want Natalie to not have to factor fertility into her decision to get married." Jake did not respond right away, so Abe pressed on. "What have you got to lose, Jake? If you don't do anything, you're infertile. If this doesn't work, you're infertile. If this works, however, you finally have a chance at being a father. So what are you going to do?"

"Jake, you'll indebt yourself to RDA," Norm said. "And Neytiri – I don't know, but I don't see her being thrilled by this."

Jake took in a deep breath. He had told Neytiri about the seeding test – and, as he had predicted, she was underwhelmed – but he left out the conversation with Abe. She had taught him to trust in Eywa, but in this case, he had to trust in science. Neytiri had been dismissive of his rationale up to this point, she might see this as a trick by RDA to sow discord.

Then, of course, his mind wandered to what might happen in the minds of the people once they learned the truth. His humanity had become less and less of a concern, but now that the Sky People were back, would they continue to be loyal to someone who was, in a very significant way, still human?

"I'll do it."


	13. Envelop, Part I

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N –I've tried to stick to established canon Na'vi for various plants and animals, but couldn't track down a word for the ceremonial drink. I came up with _tìngasunilzyu_, poorly translated as "bringer of truth and dreams." If you know the canon, please pass it along. Thanks to Jhayk' sulliy for filling in the other gap.

* * *

"Do you think he had second thoughts?" Max asked.

Norm shook his head. "No." He chuckled and said, "Hopefully he told Neytiri what's going on, and she solved the problem by way of castration."

"I can't believe he's going through with it," Max said with a sigh. "It's so obviously bad. Is it too obvious, maybe?"

"Maybe," Norm said, and then he paused. "That or it really is becoming a problem for Jake to not have a child."

To Norm's dismay, Jake appeared over the horizon moments later, and landed in front of him. He dismounted Rawke and approached them. "I know you don't like this—," he said to Norm.

"You're goddamned right I don't," he interrupted.

"—But Neytiri has wanted children since before I came here. I have to do this for her."

"Why?" he demanded. "Why can't you just explain to her that it's not going to happen? She didn't fall in love with you because you will be – or could have been – the father of her children. Na'vi aren't that shallow." He crossed his arms. "You should know that by now."

"Hey, I tried to explain it to her time and time again," Jake said defensively. "It's not that she didn't believe me – it just didn't register with her."

Norm was silent while he thought about what Jake and Neytiri had gone through to get where they are. Could she simply not handle another setback? He had to trust Jake to know. He shook his head, sighed, and asked, "Does she know you're doing this?"

Jake took a deep breath. "No."

Whatever sympathy he might have had for Jake evaporated. Norm went slack jawed and let out a short laugh. "Well, that's great. Why not start off a kid's life with a lie?"

"I didn't lie to her."

"You just got on Rawke and headed off?"

"I told her Abe wanted to meet again. That's not a lie."

"It's dishonest to say the least."

Jake took in a deep breath. "Look, you're closer to Abe than I am. What do you think his game is? Give me a good reason not to do this, and I'll leave right now."

"You want a good reason?" Jake nodded. "It's to get you out of the way," Norm replied. "His job is to get this base back up and running. He knows your job – your obligation – is to protect Pandora and the Na'vi. You aren't going to let him do his job, and Abe is not somebody who just gives up."

"So then why doesn't he just kill me, you, the rest of the avatar drivers, and get it over with?"

"I don't know," Norm said with a shrug. "Somehow he thinks this is easier."

Jake briefly looked over to Max, and then back to him. "And you're sure we can't just 'neutralize' him?" he asked with a lowered voice.

Norm shook his head. "He doesn't mean what he says nine times out of ten, but I have no doubt that he's telling the truth that SecOps has a fail-safe plan to kill everybody if he's not alive when they show up."

"Can't you just lock him up and let him out when they arrive?"

"I'm sure they have a code for that."

They were silent for most of a minute when Jake shook his head and said, "I have to take this risk. Once this threat has passed, Neytiri is going to want to build a family." He sighed. "For better, for worse, or for really fucked up, this is my only chance to make that happen."

Norm shook his head again, but he was done protesting. He nodded at his colleague. "Max is going to help with the surgery. He has the most experience with avatar and Na'vi anatomy, so he'll be there to make sure they aren't implanting some kind of homing beacon – or worse."

Max nodded. "I'm with Norm on this," he said. "But if you're going to have it done, I'm going to make sure it's done right."

"I appreciate it, Max," Jake said with a nod. "Do you think it's going to work?"

"Maybe," he said with a shrug. "We never had to do an organ transplant on an avatar, much less for these organs. But Doctor Cook was able to generate healthy tissue from the Na'vi DNA he collected from your avatar last month. As long as we get the plumbing right, it should work."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"Your body rejects the organ, we aren't able to get to you in time, a systemic inflammatory response sets in, and you die."

Jake chuckled. "So when Abe said the worst was that I'd just be infertile—."

"Nine times out of ten," Norm replied.

* * *

Abe walked into the control room of what used to be the avatar holding area. More than a decade earlier, it was the first place where an avatar driver woke up in his or her avatar's body. Today, however, Matthew and Max had converted it into a surgical bay. Matthew was busy going back and forth between terminals while, in the unpressurized chamber, Norm and Max tended to Jake. "Doc Patel is taking care of getting Jake prepped, Boss," Matthew said. "So, in the few minutes I have you to myself, do you want to fill me in on why we're doing this?"

"When I met my wife, she was one of the most capable, respected and feared executives in RDA," Abe said. "She was also hot-headed," he added with a smile. "It's part of why Chairman Savage never let her move up the ladder."

"What was the other part?"

"She's a she."

"Ah."

Abe shrugged. "Anyway, once Krysta had Natalie, she called it quits. She has all the motivation and capability to restart her career if she wanted, but she wants to be a mother more than anything else."

Matthew nodded. "Okay, but Norm and Doctor Patel are about to come up here, so make your point if you have one."

"Like I said after I met her, Neytiri is the power broker in the relationship. She's also set on building a family. If we give her a child, we take her out of the equation."

"And in a stinging rebuke of two centuries of women's liberation theory—," Matthew said with a laugh. "Well, there are two very significant problems with your plan, Boss."

Abe raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Enlighten me before we make a terrible mistake."

Matthew picked up on his skepticism and grinned. However, he then nodded and said, "First, what makes you think that having a child isn't just going to throw Neytiri into an overprotective overdrive once the mercenaries arrive?"

He shrugged and shook his head. "The clan already has enough children to call up her maternal instincts," he replied. "Her own child just makes it personal." He paused. "What's the average Na'vi gestation period?"

"Ten, maybe eleven months."

"How long until SecOps arrives?"

"Eight months."

"Do you think a woman in a late-term pregnancy who cares deeply for the safety of her child is going to ride out to battle?" He smiled when Matthew did not respond. "And the second problem?"

"If Neytiri's your wife, then you're Jake," Matthew replied. "Now, in the course of securing a better future for your daughter, you traveled four and a half light years. What do you think Jake's going to do?"

"I didn't have a choice," he said grimly. "Jake does. I know what I would choose if I were in his position."

He knew what the obvious follow-up question to that would be. But at that moment, before Matthew could ask it, Norm and Max entered the control room. "He's ready," Max said as he took a seat at one of the terminals. "Are the machines calibrated?"

"Yes," Matthew replied with a nod, taking his seat at another terminal. Abe looked into the chamber as various surgical devices began to activate around Jake's gurney. "Are you going to monitor vitals for me?"

"Among other things," Max replied. "Watch where you cut, and we should be fine."

Matthew chuckled. "We're all guys here," he said. "I don't think any of us want to see a wrong cut today."

* * *

A storm settled over Hell's Gate after the surgery, giving Jake a slightly more plausible excuse for his extended delay in returning home. He had kept in contact Neytiri through the field radio in order to keep her from worrying.

Despite that, the first thing she said to him when he disembarked on Hometree's crown branch was, "I worried about you."

He embraced Neytiri and kissed her. "No need to worry," he replied with a smile. "I'm back."

"Seven nights is a very long time to be gone," she said. "And I don't like that you do not take warriors with you when you go. It is dangerous to ride _ikran_ alone." She took his hands in hers, interlacing their fingers. "I do not want you to go back there unguarded."

"Each time I show up with warriors," he said, "it makes them think that we're getting ready for war."

"We are getting ready for war," she replied sternly. "You say it yourself."

Jake nodded and took in a deep breath. "You're right," he said as he gently squeezed her hands. "Okay, I promise I won't go back there alone."

She sighed. "I wish you wouldn't go back there at all."

"I can't do that," he replied, shaking his head. "I'm learning more about Abe and his ways. The other Sky People were like _angtsik_ – they were very dim, and they only knew how to attack by charging. Abe is _palulukan_ – he is smart, and he can come at us many ways."

"But the people need to see you lead the hunt," she said. "It does not matter if it is _angtsik _or _palulukan_,you cannot be on the hunt by yourself. You will not survive." She took in a deep breath. "I trust you know what you are doing, Jake. But let me help you – let the people help you."

He nodded. "Again, you're right," he replied. "I also promise not to keep you in the dark anymore."

She smiled and kissed his hand. "So tell me: What did _T'ngyute_, the great _palulukan_, want to talk about this time?"

"Children," Jake replied. Neytiri let out a harsh, ejective spat in response. "He wanted to talk about setting up another school."

She snarled and walked back into Hometree. "Sky People do not understand. Learning cannot be separated from living – the two are the same. Doctor Grace Augustine would not understand it." She sighed. "He wasted your time again, and made you forget your responsibilities."

As they settled in to their hammock, he put his arm around her waist and brought her close to him. "It's impossible for me to forget my responsibilities," he said. "Not to the people—," he brushed the back of his hand over her cheek, "—and not to you."

Neytiri smiled and closed her eyes at his touch. She reached up and took his hand, again interlacing their fingers. "I know," she said as she rested her brow against his.

They held each other as they kissed, and before long the _tsaheylu_ was made between them. But where they often bonded through each other's memories and emotions, tonight they shared each other's intimacy and passion.

Even though the years they had spent together had taken some of the excitement of uncertainty away from their mating, they found pleasure in the familiarity they developed. They were able to attended to each other's needs as though they were their own. There were no secrets, no barriers.

Tonight, however, he found he had uncanny virility. Although it was not uncommon for the two to mate passionately after spending long times away from each other, Jake felt himself becoming primal as he tapped into his newfound energy. Neytiri, through the _tsaheylu_ and not-too subtle body language, encouraged him on.

In time – longer than usual, Jake believed – their bond reached its inevitable conclusion. Jake settled next to her as they breathed heavily in the afterglow, taking her into his arms. The bioluminescent markers on her body alternated colors, ranging from a brilliant white to a faint blue. They were both too breathless for words, too exhausted to even make the effort to find them, and so they fell asleep.

They woke up later than usual the next morning, receiving wry grins from a handful of their neighbors that they encountered during the day – evidence that they were not as discreet as they had wanted. No Na'vi couple was innocent of mating among others in Hometree – or wherever their clans called home – the trick was to not disturb the others.

Several nights later, Jake was roused from his sleep by a gentle but deliberate shaking from Neytiri. Her nightmares had become infrequent since she had confessed them to him – and even when she had tried to conceal them, she never intentionally woke him in their course. As such, his first reaction was to be concerned. "Are you okay?" he asked just above a whisper.

Her eyes were barely open, and she nodded. "I'm pregnant, Jake," she said.

He was wide awake. "How do you know?"

"Eywa gave me a vision of our children in my dream," she said as she moved closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arms around her. "'Children?'" he asked. "You mean you're pregnant with twins."

She shook her head so slightly that he almost thought that she was just shifting her body. "It could be children conceived later," she said. "But in my vision, we had many children." She took in a deep breath. "I did not want to wait to tell you."

He kissed her forehead. "I'm happy you didn't wait."

"I told you Eywa would bless us. We just had to be patient."

Jake took in a deep breath and closed his eyes, gently rubbing her back. "You did say that," he replied. "You did say that."

* * *

Mu'kuti and his fellow hunters joined the other hunting parties around Hometree's principal firepit. Acolytes were taking and preparing the kills from the parties' respective hunts to be consumed by the rest of the clan. Children eagerly watched as the carcasses piled up, pointing out which looked the best, while older Na'vi, never missing an opportunity to impart their wisdom, explained to them the best ways to prepare the animals.

He let out a grunt as he took the deceased hexapede from his back and set it before Mehi'a for inspection. "It didn't look that heavy when I started carrying it," he said between breaths.

She chuckled. "You should have been looking at the journey, not _yerik_," she replied with a smile. "He nodded, and she began her inspection of the carcass, paying special attention the wound he made with his spear and the coup de grâce cut across its neck. "This is a clean kill," Mehi'a declared. "It did not suffer needlessly." She looked up at him with her brow raised. "It's not easy to kill one of these with a spear alone. I'm impressed."

"I was well hidden," he said, passing on humility. "I got as close to it as I am to you right now, and then—," he made a slight stabbing motion at her.

Mehi'a grinned as if in disbelief, but he was spared having to defend himself. "It's true," one of his fellow hunters said as he laid his own kill down for inspection. "I've never seen anybody get that close. We thought he was going to scare it off."

He smiled and replied, "I'm sure your arrow would have made up for my mistake, Ätsì."

"Maybe," he said with a shrug. "The jungle was very thick in that place."

Mehi'a took out a stone cleaver and hacked off one of the rear-most hind legs of Mu'kuti's kill. "Here is your share," she said as she handed him the leg. "The rest will go to the people."

"Thank you, sister." He paused and asked, "Can you spare something for Kuraku? It's been a while since I've seen him."

She turned the carcass onto its back and, with a smaller knife, cut open its belly. She reached inside and cut out one of the organs. "_Ikran_ will forgive you if you give him your heart," she said with a half smile.

He chuckled and took the still-warm organ from her hand. "Thank you."

"Are you not going to join us tonight?" Ätsì asked.

"I will," he replied with a nod, and then let out a short laugh. "But Kuraku was upset that he could not come on the hunt with us."

Ätsì held up his hands and smiled. "I understand," he said. "We are going to build a firepit by the river. Come find us."

Mehi'a looked hurt and asked, "You won't join the rest of the people tonight? We would all like to hear about your journey and your remarkable kill."

"We don't mean to offend the people," Mu'kuti said. "But we thought it would be fitting to end the hunt by sharing our bounty together."

Ästì nodded and added, "Besides, it is late in the day. I know the main feast won't be until tomorrow night, when you and the others have had a chance to properly prepare all this food."

She sighed and nodded. "No offense will be taken," she said. "Not as long as you are here tomorrow night."

"Where else would we be?" Mu'kuti asked. She offered a weak smile in response, and then returned to examining Ästì's kill.

mu'kuti made his way up to Hometree's crown branches, only stopping to set his shield, spear, and hexapede leg at his hammock. He walked out onto the branches just as dusk was settling in and called out, "Kuraku!" When the banshee did not appear right away, he mimicked its screech. He was surprised how close he was able to come to making the sound, and assumed it was one of the ways that Kuraku had imprinted on him when they bonded.

The leaves began to rustle, and Kuraku emerged before him. Mu'kuti carefully approached the banshee, hexapede heart in hand. The moment the banshee picked up on the scent, he became very animated, let out a series of excited chirps, and almost lunged at Mu'kuti.

"Ah! Steady," he said, putting one hand on the beast's snout while holding back the heart until he was less exited. When he was satisfied that he had calmed down, Mu'kuti brought the heart forward; and Kuraku eagerly ate it from his hand.

He patted Kuraku's snout. "Next hunt," he said. "I promise."

Kuraku chirruped under his hands. Mu'kuti chuckled as he recalled the cat he had as a child on Earth. His stepmother had wanted to get rid of it to alleviate her allergies; but as buying a hypoallergenic cat was out of the question, his father had persuaded her to let him keep it. It responded the same way whenever he gave it a treat outside of his usual meal. They were friends until he died just before Mu'kuti went off to college.

"He could be brave, but I think you're the better hunter," he said quietly in English. Kuraku was the only creature on Pandora who knew he spoke the language of the Sky People.

He patted him one more time and reverted to the native tongue. "I'll take you out tomorrow," he said. And then he smiled and added, "We'll find something bigger for you to eat."

Kuraku chirruped again and then turned to disappear into the canopy.

As expected, Mu'kuti found his fellow hunters sitting around a firepit on the river bank. He raised his hexapede leg to hail them, and they responded him with cheers. As he approached, his nose was filled with pleasant smells of roasting meat and an array of spices. He sat between Ästì and Kiryìk, one of the females of the hunting team, and placed the hexapede leg on one of the firepit's top stones.

"The fire hasn't been going long," Kiryìk said to him. "It will be a while before the stones have heated up to cook that."

He shrugged. "I have nothing else to do but wait," he replied with a smile.

"Yes, actually, you do," Ästì said.

"Oh?"

He nodded and grabbed a gourd at his side. "You must drink this," he said with a devious grin.

While the others whooped and clapped, Mu'kuti shook his head. Even with the lid on the gourd, he could smell the potent brew within. "It's too early!" he protested. "We should wait for the meat to cook, first."

Mu'kuti had imbibed _tìngasunilzyu_ several times since his arrival, but not even the hard liquors he was familiar with on Earth had prepared him for it. It also did not help that the body he had taken had never had an ounce of liquor before arriving on Pandora, and he was still teased for how ill he became after his first encounter with the drink.

Kiryìk responded to his protest with an ejective spat, and she did not hesitate to reach across him to take the gourd from Ästi's hands. She removed the lid and took a long drink, much to the others' approval.

When she was done, she handed the gourd to him. When he did not take it right away, she smirked and asked, "Are you afraid you'll get sick again?"

He sighed and accepted the tacit challenge. With the lid removed, the drink's odor was even more pungent. He leaned back and drank until he could not suffer the burning in his throat any longer. He handed the gourd off to Ästì and said, "That will be enough for now."

"We will see," he replied before taking his own swig and handing the drink off for the other hunters to share.

They made small talk about the success of the hunt while the meat cooked, and then chatted little while they ate. For the last week they had subsisted on whatever the jungle would provide for them. They were all too eager for this meal to let it go cold over conversation.

Mu'kuti had his fill in short order, but he was again surprised by the Na'vi's thoroughness in taking full advantage of their kills. At the end of the meal, Kiryìk tapped him on his knee and nodded towards the bones of his hexapede leg. "Are you going to eat that?"

He laughed. "No, sister, I hadn't planned on it."

"That's a shame," she said. She grabbed a nearby rock and smashed the bones open, then sucked out the bone marrow.

"I'm with Mu'kuti," Ästì said. "Marrow is too sweet after a meal like that."

She wiped her lips off on the back of her hand and shook her head. "You two are very strange, then."

It was well into the night when they decided to retire. Two more passes of _tìngasunilzyu_ had severely impaired his ability to navigate back to Hometree – despite it being only a few hundred yards away. He decided to rest on a hastily made bed of fronds.

He could have fallen asleep quickly, but not a moment after he closed his eyes, he felt someone lay beside him. He turned over to identify his visitor. "I am with you," Kiryìk said. "I can't take another step."

Mu'kuti nodded and replied, "It's cold on the jungle floor, though, so maybe you would prefer—," she moved herself closer to him and rested her head on his chest. "—to rest by the fire."

"Everything we said tonight was true. You are a very good hunter," she said, ignoring his suggestion. "Were you a good hunter before you came to us?" He was about to respond with his tired story, but she laughed and said, "Ah! _Skxawng_! I forgot that you don't remember."

"That's right," he replied.

She propped herself up on her elbows to look down on him, bearing a wicked grin. "Do you remember mating?" she asked. "I think _that_ memory would be hard to lose."

He took in a deep breath before letting out a nervous laugh. Suddenly he found himself grateful for his impromptu tryst with Dawn. "Yes, in fact, I do."

Kiryìk's expression faded into disappointment. "Oh," she said. "What is her name?"

"That I don't know," he said. "But when I think of her, it's like the first light of dawn."

She nodded slowly. "She has probably sung the mourning songs for you by now," she offered. "Maybe it's time…"

"Kiryìk," he interrupted. "You are a very fine hunter—," he placed a hand on her cheek, brushing his thumb over her skin, "—and very beautiful. But I don't know you, and you don't know me. It wouldn't be right. Not now."

She settled back down next to him and sighed. "You're right," she said. She looked into his eyes and asked, "I would like to know you better. Would you like to know me better?"

"As a friend," he said. "Yes, I would."

"Can I stay with you tonight?"

He smiled and nodded, then brought her close. "I would like that."

Kiryìk smiled and wrapped her arms around him, closed her eyes, and rested her head on his shoulder. "Because it is cold on the jungle floor?" she asked.

"Because the others would never let me forget if I turned down the embrace of a beautiful hunter."

She laughed and poked him in his side. "You're drunk," she insisted.

"Yes," he admitted with a chuckle. "But it's the truth."

"It does bring out the truth," she said. He feared that she might take advantage of that fact and ask him more questions, but in the time that he waited for her to do so, she fell asleep.

_Eight more months_, he said to himself as he drifted off to his own dreams. _Just hold out for eight more months_.


	14. Envelop, Part II

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

"What time is it?" Amy asked as he stirred awake.

"Morning," Norm replied with a sigh. She elbowed him with a playful laugh, so he looked at the bedside clock and clarified his response. "Seven forty." He paused. "Seven forty-one."

"Shit!" She lifted his arm off her shoulders, kicked off the bed sheets and shot out of bed. "We're fucked."

He laughed and said, "Well, yeah."

She took a moment to stop gathering her clothes to send him a sharp look of disapproval. "Not funny, Norm."

He sat up and kicked his legs over the side of the bed. "What are you so worried about?"

"I didn't sleep with the team last night," she replied as she put her shirt on. "We've been here three months, and we've never left our bunks for the night."

"Okay, so you were working late. Why is that a big deal?"

She pulled her pants up. "Where would I be working late?"

"Aren't you going to at least shower, first?" he asked as he yawned and rubbed his eyes.

"So I was working late in some mystery office _and_ managed to shower?"

Norm reached out and grabbed her forearm and coaxed her to sit next to him. He kissed her cheek and said, "Don't panic, okay? I mean, you haven't said anything to your team about us, have you?"

"The Boss knows we're working together."

He knew that she had to tell him about their working relationship, but his heart skipped a beat all the same. Norm figured Abe was not the kind of person to miss subtle cues. "But not—?"

Amy shook her head. "No," she replied emphatically. "Absolutely not."

"Then read in the rest of the team." She grimaced at the suggestion, but he continued, "They'll chide you, but I don't think they'd really believe – you know?"

"Yeah, I know," she said after a short laugh. "And you're right – they would not believe this."

"Well, maybe if they knew more of the details," he said with a sly grin. He leaned over and kissed the nape of her neck, then along the line of her jaw. She protested on grounds that she needed to get back to her team – that she had just gotten dressed – but they were half-hearted and faded quickly.

It was eight fifty when Norm was roused out of bed for a second time, except this time it was due to an insistent knocking at his door. He wrapped a towel around his waist and answered with a still-sleepy, "I'm here, who's there?"

"It's Max. You're missing breakfast."

He rubbed his forehead. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine. Open the door, man." Norm sighed and obliged his request. Max looked concerned. "Are you sick? It looks like you've been sweating."

"I was just trying to keep up with my exercises," he said. "I guess I lost track of time."

Max chuckled and said, "At least one of us is." He shook his head. "I didn't take them seriously to begin with, back when we had all the supplemental vitamins, and now I'm paying for it. It hurts too much when I do them these days."

"You need to get back into it," Norm replied. "We've got too much going on to have you knocked out by low gravity."

Max's response was to wave him off. "So, anyway, you're going to pass on breakfast?"

He nodded. "I was going to jump in the shower. I'll catch up with you in a few to go over the maintenance logs." Max nodded and walked away.

He heard Amy walk out of the bedroom after he closed the door. "Are we clear?" she asked. He turned and nodded. "Good," she said. "Now I really do need to get out of here."

"You should probably stick around and let me leave first," he said. "If I learned anything as an undergrad, it was that the 'walk of shame' is much less powerful if the tenant leaves first."

Amy looked taken aback, but her expressions softened and she grinned. She crossed her arms and asked, "And how did you come to learn that little lesson?"

He shook his head and laughed, trying to wave off her suspicions. "My freshman year roommate was an all-star lacrosse player who cycled through all-star cheerleaders."

"Ah," she said with a slow, deliberate nod.

Norm showered, dressed, and met Max as promised. However, not a few minutes later, Luke interrupted their meeting. Almost breathless, he said, "Norm, you need to get back to your suite, like, ten minutes ago."

He and Max ran back to his residence where, just outside the door, Laura was holding Amy at gunpoint. "I caught this bitch on her way out of your room," she said. "They must have you under surveillance – they probably have us all under surveillance."

"Christ," Max said. "Where's their corporate master to explain this?"

"I sent Sean to get him."

Norm shook his head. "Laura, you're overreacting." To Amy's credit, she was remarkably calm for having a gun pointed in her face. In fact, she looked outright pissed. "Put your gun away."

She might have complied right away, but then Amy said, "Yeah, so I can have a clean crack at your nose."

Laura pulled the hammer back on her pistol. "Try it and see what happens."

"What is it with you people and itchy trigger fingers?" she asked, every word dripping with hostility. "We're unarmed. You saw to that. Are you just trying to play tough guy, or are you so pathetic that it makes you actually feel tough?"

At that moment, Sean came into the hallway holding Abe at arm's length with a gun to his back. "Have you people completely lost your minds?" Abe demanded when he saw the scene. "This is unreal. Let her go, now."

"Why are you ordering your people to spy on us?" Laura asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"Did you think we wouldn't find out?"

"Again—?"

She looked back at Amy and, with a crooked grin, asked, "You're military, right? You want to tell your boss what happens to spies who get caught?"

"If you shoot her," Abe yelled, "I _will _order SecOps to wipe you guys out when they get here! All of you. We'll condemn you as saboteurs, bankrupt your families recovering damages in lawsuits, and the kids you have here will be relocated to orphanages."

"Not if you're dead, too," Sean said.

"That's what will happen if you kill me anyway."

The hallway erupted in shouting as the threats escalated. Norm tried to plead for everybody to calm down, but all parties were committed to airing their various grievances. Above the din, Norm heard Amy said, "I've had enough of you, bitch." There was a very brief struggle between the two, but Amy's physical prowess far exceeded Laura's. She disarmed Laura and, as threatened, landed a clean punch on her nose. Laura fell back, and Amy drew the gun on her.

At the same time, Abe managed to get the upper hand over Sean and, after breaking his elbow, got control of his gun. "On me, Colonel," he said, and soon the avatar team was huddled together and staring down the barrels of the stolen guns.

Norm gathered himself enough to look past the gun and lock with Amy's eyes. She was clearly furious, but softness in her expression gave him some confidence that she was only leveling her gun at him and his friends for show.

Abe, on the other hand, was both furious and unwavering. Norm was extremely confident that, with any further provocation, Abe would not hesitate to pull his trigger. After taking a deep breath, Abe turned to him and said, "Norm, correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that you were working with Colonel Hall to give her the benefit of your expertise on Na'vi culture."

"Can you put the guns down?" Norm asked. "We don't need this."

"Yes, you do," Abe replied far too calmly for Norm's liking. "Your people have been harassing my people with threats of violence ever since we made our deal, and I'm done with it. As soon as we've sorted out the current situation, I'm breaking into the armory and arming my team."

"Abe—," his voice trailed off as he failed to come up with a good defense.

"You're going to abide by it, or you're all going to the holding bay for the duration of your time here. _All_ of you." He paused. "What did I tell you all when we first sat down to discuss our terms?"

Norm sighed. "You said it was our call how things went down," he recalled.

Abe nodded slowly and, in the same disquietingly calm tone, replied, "And so far I've been unimpressed by your decision making skills. So I'm shifting the balance of power, is that clear?" Norm nodded. "Now, one more time: Are you or are you not working with Colonel Hall?"

"I am."

"Judging by the reactions of your teammates, I'm going to assume you didn't tell them about your arrangement."

He shook his head. "I didn't."

"Tell them now." He pointed his gun in Laura's direction. "Start with her."

Norm took a deep breath and looked at Laura. "I gave Amy permission to go through my old notes and video logs," he said. "She wasn't breaking in to my room, she had free access."

From behind her hands, between which blood continued to pour from her broken nose, Laura gave him a fierce look of disapproval. "You're going soft," she said. "What if that's not the only thing she was looking at?"

"Christ, Laura, it's not like I have nuclear launch codes in there!" he said. "I have books and ten year old field notes." He looked at Abe and asked, "There, are you satisfied? Will you put those away?"

Abe waited before he lowered his gun, using his belt for a makeshift holster. Amy followed suit. "I'll have Doctor Cook meet you two in the medical bay," he said with a nod towards Sean and Laura, and then he approached Norm. "Do you want some advice on leadership?"

"I'm not…"

"Bullshit. And if you want to be a half-decent leader, then you should keep your team up to speed on your plans. Do you follow me?"

"Yeah, I follow you."

Abe then turned his attention to Amy. "Are you okay, Colonel?"

"My hand's a little sore," she said while looking at Laura. "But otherwise I'm fine, Boss."

Abe nodded and said, "Come find me when you're sorted out, here." Then he continued down the corridor as though the last few minutes had been nothing more than an unpleasant conversation.

While Luke escorted Laura and a very pained Sean to the medical bay, Max stayed behind. His arms were crossed, and he made no attempt to mask his disapproval. "Keeping up with your exercises?" he asked. Since it was clear he needed no answer to the question, Norm stayed quiet. He shook his head. "I know you've been going through some heavy shit lately," he said. "But this?"

"Max, that's not fair," he said, not a little upset. "Why do I have to be miserable? Is that one of the criteria for keeping Jake and the Na'vi safe?"

"Eventually all of this is going to come to a head, probably sooner rather than later. I just hope you don't forget whose side you're on when that happens."

Norm had heard enough. He grabbed Max by his shirt collar and pushed him against the opposite wall. "I'm doing my best to make sure this doesn't all go down the toilet," he said mere inches from Max's face. "And I'm getting tired of everybody trying to escalate the situation just to 'get it over with.'"

Max managed to loosen Norm's grip and then pushed him off. "So when SecOps goes marching off into the forest based on your girlfriend's plans, are you going to call up Jake and tell him to not 'escalate' the situation?"

"It doesn't have to happen like that."

"That's the _only_ way it's going to happen!" Max shouted. "And if you would think with your head again, you'd remember that." He took a deep breath. "Look, I'm not going to tell the others about the depth of your 'working' relationship. But don't think that I'll just let you stand in the way if we have to take it up a notch." He shook his head again. "You are going soft," he said before he walked away.

Amy put a hand on Norm's shoulder. "Maybe we should, you know, take a break," she offered. "This isn't going to get any better."

"And when would we pick it back up?" he asked. "When SecOps arrives? When you're back on Earth and I'm in jail?"

She snorted. "You don't believe that."

"Your boss just spelled it out," he said. "How can I not believe that?"

"He was just mad that he had been held hostage," she responded in Abe's defense. "Violence is not his M.O."

Norm snorted and said, "That's not what he looked like five seconds ago." He looked in her eyes and asked, "What about you? Would you have—?"

"No," she said. However, she looked away and added, "Unless that bitch gave me a reason." She spat and affirmed, "Her? Yeah, I would have."

Norm tried to think about what that might have been like to watch. He could vividly recall watching the Na'vi gunned down, crying out in shock and pain as the humans' superior firepower mowed them down. It was too unpleasant to remember, and he could not bring himself to think of Amy doing something similar to his friend – or even a former friend, as it may now be.

"So, what about you and me?"

He smiled and kissed her hand. "I'm still interested."

* * *

Mu'kuti woke up alone and disoriented. He could only manage open his eyes a crack for brief moments before the late morning light aggravated his headache and he had to close them again. He stumbled to his feet and made his way towards the river.

He knelt at the bank's edge and, not content to just splash water on his face, leaned forward and submerged his head. He stayed under for the better part of a minute, enjoying the feel of the river rushing over him, before he came back to the surface.

As his senses began to fight back against the all consuming headache, he could hear a few people giggling. He looked over and saw Mehi'a and a small group of others standing in the river with fishing spears and nets; and they were more than a little amused by his display. "Did you have a good night?" Mehi'a called out with a wry grin.

Before he could answer, one of the other fishers said, "He probably spent it throwing up."

He wiped some of the excess water from his face before he stood. "I held it down," he said with a smirk to the tribesman.

The fisherman nodded and said, "Well, I'm sure the children will be very proud of you."

Mu'kuti flipped his tail at him as he walked up the riverbank. In the meantime, Mehi'a had turned her attention back to the river and, with lightning reflexes, jabbed her trident spear downward. She smiled as she withdrew an impaled fish from the river and, in keeping with the rituals, wasted no time in cutting off its head in order to end its suffering.

She walked out of the river at the same time he approached her, and she casually dropped the fish's body in a woven basket. "Will you come with me back to _Kelutrel_?" She smiled and added, "Maybe I can find something to help you wake up." He nodded and carried the basket for her as they walked.

When they were a few yards away from the riverbank, she said, "Don't mind their teasing – it's all in fun."

He chuckled and said, "I don't mind. I can't say I'd let someone else forget if I saw them do the same thing." He took a deep breath to change the subject. "How are preparations for tonight's feast coming along?"

"Very well," she said, then turned to look at him. "But we could always use another pair of hands."

He nodded and replied, "I would be happy to help, but I promised Kuraku a hunt today. He's been nested for too long."

Mehi'a appeared slightly disappointed, but she smiled despite it and said, "It seems like you have formed a strong bond with him."

"_Ikran_ has similar emotions to us, if you can read it right."

"That's what I like about you, Mu'kuti – you are observant." She let out a nervous laugh and continued, "I'm sure you've heard people say that you're 'distant,' but I think you are just seeing things more deeply." She stopped him with a gentle touch on his forearm, stood in front of him and asked, "Do you see me?"

His heart began to beat more rapidly as he picked up on her intended course of conversation. "Of course, sister," he replied plainly, trying to keep her from inferring anything further.

She took the basket from his hands and set it aside, then took his hands in hers. "What do you see?"

He raised his brow and said, "I usually see you with Tseyo."

Mehi'a looked confused for a moment, but then she laughed. "Tseyo is my brother," she said. "Is that why you've been avoiding me?"

He looked away and said, "It's part of why, yes."

"And the other part?" she asked, some of the levity lost in her voice.

"It has nothing to do with you," he offered. "When I wasn't being trained by Nakllte, I was mostly out with hunters. You seem to have other occupations."

"Are you suggesting that I'm not keeping up with my duties as a hunter?" she asked with a grin. "You should know that I am an expert with the bolas. I have stopped many _talioang_ and _nantang_."

"You hunt _nantang_?"

She shook her head and replied, "No, but sometimes they hunt you."

"Then I have to be honest," he said with a smile. "I didn't see that in you."

"There's much about me you don't know," she said. "But if you would give me the time, I would like to tell you."

"You should know that Kiryìk has asked the same thing of me."

Now she had more trouble masking her reaction to him. She let go of his hands and asked, "Have you chosen her?"

"No," he replied, perhaps more emphatically than was necessary.

"Then there is nothing to worry about," she said, her expression lightening again. "Many of your sisters here are looking for suitors. It's not offensive to take time to know them."

"If there is any reason I have to avoid you and your sisters," he said, "it is because I _have_ taken a mate."

Mehi'a looked down. "But she has not come for you," she said. "And you are not looking for her."

"If I knew where she was, I would go to her."

"If it were meant to be, Eywa would have shown you the way home long ago." She put her hands on his shoulders, looked into his eyes and said pointedly, "Now you are Omaticaya, and you don't have a mate in this clan." She sighed and placed her hands on his chest. "It is your choice, though, and I will respect it."

He nodded and put his hands over hers. "Thank you, Mehi'a."

She smiled and said, "You should know, brother, that you are the subject of much conversation among my sisters. Don't be too concerned if you are approached from time to time – they mean no offense."

As he pondered that, she knelt down and took a fish from the basket. "For Kuraku," she said. "To whet his appetite."

Kuraku needed little encouragement. As soon as he spotted a hexapede in a jungle clearing, he dove in for the kill. It was quick, and whereas the Na'vi took great care in carving the body in such a way to respect the slain animal, Kuraku simply fed however he found convenient.

Despite the unmistakable scent of blood now filling the air, Mu'kuti was not worried about being ambushed by other predators. The scent of his banshee would be enough to keep scavengers away.

He sat against a tree trunk, reached behind his ear and pressed on the microphone protrusion. "Base, are you there?"

"Look who's making a report while the sun's up," Dawn replied a moment later. "Are you in trouble?"

He let out a short laugh and said, "In a way, yes."

"Do I need to get the boss in here?"

"No!" Kuraku looked up from the hexapede and turned towards him. Mu'kuti waved him off. "No, it's not that kind of trouble."

"Okay, so what is it? You sound pretty unnerved."

He sighed. "Remember the conversation we had when I came to Hell's Gate?"

There was a pause, and then laughter. "You have got to be kidding me!"

"I got one proposal last night and one this morning." When Dawn's only response was more laughter, he said, "I need your help on this one."

"I can help, but then this call would cost you ten ninety-nine a minute."

"Dawn!"

"What are you expecting from me?" she asked, her tone much more serious. "You're supposed to be our Special Forces insider, so do what you would do if you were behind enemy lines."

"I don't know what you people in the Chair Force were told," he said with a snort, "but Special Forces trained me how to avoid detection, not how to avoid women."

"So congratulations, knuckle dragger," she shot back. "You've successfully immersed yourself so deeply into the tribe that you've become a prospective mate."

"Except that isn't part of the plan!" He growled and said, "I can't spend the entire time in the tribe rejecting their women, or else they're going to figure out something's up."

"What happened to telling them that you're already mated?"

He sighed and responded, "Despite your best efforts, they're not buying it." He paused and asked, "About that—."

"Devon, I—," she began, but then her voice trailed off. She sighed heavily and finished saying, "I'm not supposed to talk about it. Boss' orders."

"Fuck him, he's not here."

Other than the dull noise in his ear to confirm that he had an open channel, there was silence for a minute. Dawn eventually responded, "I told you then that it was a one-time thing. You were – It was a target of opportunity." She let out a short laugh. "I mean, you didn't really think I wanted to start something serious, did you?"

"No," he said, hoping he sounded convincing. "Of course not."

"So there's no reason to get hung up on it, right?"

He sighed. "Right."

"Okay." She took a breath and continued, "So getting back to your women problems. Do you really want my advice?"

"Please."

"Mate."

He was taken aback. "I'm sorry," he said. "I think we got disconnected. Can you repeat that?"

"Mate with one of them," she said in the same matter-of-fact tone as before.

He paused to search for the right words to respond to her advice. He settled for saying, "That's the worst advice you could have possibly given."

"You said yourself that you can't just push aside every Na'vi female who comes after you, or else they'll get suspicious. So get it over with and mate with one of them."

He chuckled and responded, "I don't know what your plans are, but I don't intend to spend the rest of my life tied down on this planet." He snorted and added, "And unlike you, I'm not exactly attracted to these overgrown cats, so sealing the deal might be a little difficult for me to pull off."

"Touché," she said. After a moment's pause, she continued, "Maybe you can just court one of them – you know, go through the motions. Then when we extract you, there are no bonds broken."

"Maybe," he replied, taking a moment to play through the scenario in his mind. "It's possible that the 'lost mate' story will hold up for a few more months, maybe even to the end of all this."

"Remember not to get too serious about it," she warned. "You've already proven yourself to be a solid method actor, so don't get drawn in."

"Copy that," he replied.

"Good. So while I have the rare privilege of talking to you in real-time, do you have any actionable intelligence I can take back to the boss?"

"Yeah," he said. "I've got plenty for you."

* * *

Abe could not remember the last time he had a headache; but whenever it was, he would have put good money down that it had not been nearly as bad as the headache cutting through him at the moment. He had not expected his team would get along with the renegades, but he had expected that the renegades would not have been so brazen as to draw down on his team – not this soon.

He was distracted from his discomfort by a knock on his door. "Come in," he called out.

Amy entered the room. "You wanted to see me, Boss?" He nodded and opened his hand to the seat in front of his desk, and she promptly closed the door and sat down.

He let out a short laugh and said, "Well, that was one hell of a morning, wasn't it?"

"No kidding," she replied. "I had no idea it would get to that level."

"They've been itching for a fight well before we got here," he said, shaking his head. "If it wasn't you working with Norm, it would have been one of them stumbling on Miguel producing 'weapons' in the stereolithography plant, or accusing the Greens of poking around where they didn't belong."

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Anyway, I just wanted to check in with you to see how all of this is going to affect your relationship with Norm."

If his perception was not slightly dulled by the headache, he might have noticed Amy's eyes widen slightly at his choice of words, but all he saw was her slowly shake her head. "I think I've gotten most of what I can from Norm at this point," she replied. "We talked a bit, and I don't think I'm going to have any restricted access to his notes."

Abe nodded his head. "Good." He took a deep breath and added, "Well, at least we can take solace in knowing that, at the very least, we've taken Norm out as a threat."

"Come again?"

"The rest of the renegades aren't going to conspire with him after his revelation," he said. "That's the only reason I can think of for him not telling them that you two were working partners. But since he's the one with the direct line to Jake, whatever plans they make can only be marginally effective at best."

She nodded. "I see what you're getting at."

"So, when do you think you'll have a draft report ready for me?"

"I figure it will be another two or three weeks, if not longer," she replied with a shrug. "Dawn caught me on the way down here and said she made contact with Devon. Apparently he had a lot of new intel for me to digest."

"Good," he said with a nod. "It's about time we heard from him again." He paused and continued, "When you have something ready, I want you to run it by Parker before me."

Now it was her turn to laugh. "Please explain that one to me, Boss. I thought we had him marginalized."

"We do," he said. "I mean, I bring him in here every once in a while to talk logistics, but not much else. However, I'm concerned that your report will not be as thorough if you don't get his perspective on the Na'vi scenarios."

"I know what his perspective is," she replied. "We all do. He just wants to wipe them out. You've said clearly that that's not an acceptable outcome."

"You're right," he said. "But Parker didn't always want to wipe out the Na'vi. Something set him off." He sighed. "To be honest, given this morning's events, I'm beginning to doubt the chances of us reaching a peaceful solution with the Na'vi. He's the only person who can accurately depict what we can expect on the downward slope."

She was silent for a few moments. Eventually she let out a nervous laugh and said, "You're not – You can't be serious. That's what we've been working towards for months. You can't take what happened this morning as an indicator of the Na'vi's intentions."

"We know the Na'vi have been gearing up for a fight," he replied. "And, frankly, Jake is still running with a human mentality. Maybe the Na'vi aren't naturally inclined to acts of aggression – and that's a big maybe – but humans are. It may be better to think of Jake as one of the renegades instead of one of the Na'vi. And in that case…"

"Boss," she interrupted. "Jake is under _significant_ pressures from the Na'vi. If he gets out of line, they'll take him out of the picture." She paused and added, "I thought that was one of the things you were working on anyway."

He grinned and said, "Very true. But the point remains that I think we're headed for a repeat of history, so I want to make sure Parker's consulted so we can learn from his mistakes – maybe even preempt and remove some of the Na'vi's available courses of action."

Amy nodded. "I understand. As soon as I have a draft together, I'll sit down with Parker."

"Thank you."

She stood to leave and said, "I just have one more thing to ask you."

"Fire away."

"How the hell did you get that gun off your back? No offense, but you don't strike me as a hand-to-hand expert."

Abe chuckled and said, "I'm sure you can appreciate that I very often work late nights." She nodded. "About a month before we left on this adventure, I had the television on in the background, and I caught a late night special about how to survive bar fights. One of the scenarios was a guy holding a gun to your back—," he finished with a shrug.

She laughed. "You really put your life in the hands of television advice?"

"They did say not to try it at home," he replied with a smile. "But I figured, 'Hey, I'm not at home. I'm on Pandora.' We have to do what we can to survive."


	15. Isolate

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

"I've seen this all before," Parker said. "This is almost the same briefing I had on the Na'vi when I arrived here the first time."

"I read the old report," Amy said defensively. "They're nothing alike."

"Maybe not in terms of the circumstances – obviously those are different – but the way you talk about the monkeys is about the same." He snorted and asked, "I mean, did you just get Norm to write it for you?"

She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, her lip turned in displeasure at his criticism. "So did you bother to heed any of the first report's advice, or did you think you could just wing it?"

"The recommendations of the first report are completely incompatible with our objectives here," Parker said. He leaned forward. "Look, I don't know why I have to keep reminding people about this, but for all that people back home love their little blue alien dolls and digest our propaganda films, they love having civilization more. We are making human existence possible."

"And turning a profit."

"Barely!" he shouted. "Jesus, between operational costs, salaries and benefits, transportation back to Earth, and then keeping the distribution secure, the margins suck." He stood up and began to pace, his anger starting to boil over. "And what do these tree huggers want? They want to jack up the operational costs and disrupt the supply chain to protect those savages. If we don't turn even a marginal profit on this rock, we're finished. And if we're finished, humanity's finished."

Seemingly unfazed by his outburst, she raised an eyebrow and pressed on. "But you agree that it's possible to continue operations here without disturbing the Na'vi."

"It's—," Parker had to stop to laugh. "Look, Grace was working on those monkeys for years before I got here, okay? She was the one who wrote that report." He sat down again, rubbing his temples, and sighed. "Somehow she thought I would be different than the guy who I was replacing – and I tried to be. I supported her school. I tried to introduce roads, medicine, and agriculture, but they rejected all of it. Not only did they reject it, they kept attacking us." He shrugged. "They didn't want our help, so I stopped giving it."

"But you kept supporting the avatar program."

"The government was handing out billions of dollars in research grant money for an arm's length of projects, and Grace's reputation with the academic world made sure we had no shortage of docs applying for RDA programs." he replied casually. "If those grants ever dried up, I would have sent her home."

Amy was silent for a few moments, then she asked, "So without Doctor Augustine, and without money coming in for the avatars, what would you have done to solve the Na'vi problem?"

"I would have relocated them," he said. "But I had so many security teams tied to protecting the mines that I couldn't get it done."

"They'd fight back," she said. "You know that."

"At first." He grinned and said, "Knock enough of them down, and the rest would get the message."

"Just like what happened at Doctor Augustine's school, right?" she asked pointedly. "Seems like Neytiri got the message."

Parker stopped grinning. The shooting at Grace's school had long been a sore spot for him, if for no other reason than because Grace had broken his right arm with his nine iron after she delinked, her avatar having been one of the casualties. "I didn't order that," he replied calmly. "And I tried to calm things down by suspending operations for a week. Do you know how much that cost us?"

"Kids died, and you're going on about the bottom line?"

"How many kids got killed by soldiers executing your brilliant plans, Colonel?" he said, his temper starting to swell up again. She shifted in her chair. He knew he had hit one of her sore spots, and that calmed him down a little. "Did you order those shootings? Did you pause the wars because you were sorry it happened?"

She took a deep breath and said, "It's one thing when a kid with a rocket launcher fires at an AMP Suit and gets retaliated on, it's something else to storm a school and fire indiscriminately at children. The former is combat, the latter is a war crime."

"Listen, you're never going to get anything out of this planet if you aren't willing to put down a heavy hand on those savages. They don't want us here, and they'll do whatever they think is necessary to get rid of us – and we can't afford to get knocked off this planet again." He held up a hand to preempt her objection and said, "And I'm not talking about RDA."

* * *

Jake was impressed with how quickly his warriors had adapted their hunting strategies to organized warfare. He had to break them of their impression that fighting the Sky People would be like hunting. He had relied on the veterans of the battle for the Tree of Souls to tell the younger warriors about the Sky People's coordination, and how they turned back the fierce warriors of the horse clans, and how the ground was littered with corpses of _ikrans_ shot out of the sky.

They all knew that it was Eywa's intervention which had saved the Tree of Souls from becoming a smoldering crater – they had songs to celebrate it. But they had to learn how to adapt to ensure that they could survive another attack without such catastrophic losses, with or without Eywa's aid.

And so he had armed one-hundred thirty of his warriors with the Sky People's guns, and trained them to fight. He turned hunting parties into fireteams. He taught the fireteams how to work as squads. The leaders of his squads directed their platoons. The platoons formed his _kunpongu_.

The hard part, he learned, was teaching the warriors he had selected for his company to abide by orders handed down by those he assigned as leaders. Generations of experience had taught them that there was only one _eyktan_ – whether on a hunt or for a clan. He had to teach them that in the heat of battle, he would not be able to issue his orders to all of them individually, that he did not have as many eyes as Eywa to guide each one of their movements.

In time, they understood the chain of command, and they began to trust their commanders. He taught them how to maneuver as units to reinforce each other and support the operation of the whole group. They adapted the hand signals and animal calls they used for hunting to pass down orders.

After months of work, and with the threat of an attack looming large, Jake felt it was time to put his warriors through their paces. He took them deep into the jungle, divided them, and began on a series of games. Although they carried their guns – all of which had been as elaborately decorated as their spears and bows, so much so that there was not the slightest glint of cold metal – for the games they used blunted arrows and spears.

Jake pitted the platoons against each other to achieve simple objectives. Capture the flag. Eliminate the other team. Make it to a position with a minimum number of warriors "alive."

Despite the precaution to keep the weapons safe, there were injuries as some of the warriors became too enthusiastic and engaged in hand-to-hand combat – sometimes deliberately if they believed the opposing team was not adhering to the rules of the game. He tried to referee as best he could and maintain discipline, but once in a while it was just as well to let the warriors fight it out and then punish all involved.

Night descended on the third night of their games, and they retired to their makeshift camp. But as they sat around the firepit, one of the warriors decided to air his grievances. "I know the Sky People have a peculiar way of fighting," he said. "But I don't see why we have to fight like they do. Won't they expect it?"

"They expect us to be afraid of them, Tx'kina," Jake replied.

Tx'kina chuckled. "We don't need to learn to fight like aliens to stand up to them," he said. "We've shown again and again that we aren't afraid of them – and we've done it in the ways of our ancestors."

"With no disrespect to the ancestors," he replied, "they did not have to fight the Sky People. If they did, do you think they would fight the same way they might fight another clan?"

Atané, Tx'kina's mate, scowled and said, "Your choice of words is apt, _Olo'eyktan_. They are not your ancestors. Your ancestors are back on your Earth among the Sky People. Is that why you have gone back to their shelter so many times to seek peace with them, because you can't stand to fight against your own people?"

"That's enough, Atané!" the leader of the _kunpongu_, Naw'ngié said. "Jakesully is one of the people – our people. You know this."

Jake sighed and asked, "How many of you think that peace is possible with the Sky People?" Not one of them indicated they thought such a thing was possible. He nodded. "Neither do I. Their leader, T'ngyute, talks about peace, but what he wants he is ready to take by force. Like I said, he expects that we'll be afraid of him and just submit to his conditions for peace." He grinned and, looking among the warriors, said, "If there will be peace, we will make them submit to our terms."

A few of the warriors whooped and hooted their approval, but Tx'kina shook his head and said, "If we achieve victory by ignoring Eywa and the ways of our ancestors, it will be hollow. None of the other clans will respect us. They will think we are as alien as the Sky People."

"We honor Eywa by protecting Eywa," Naw'ngié said. "The other clans will understand that."

Tx'kina and a few others did not look entirely convinced. Atané said, "I don't understand, though, why we don't attack them now. If we are going to disregard the traditions of our ancestors, then why do we have to wait for them to attack us?"

Jake was ready to respond, but Naw'ngié beat him to it. "It offends Eywa to kill without necessity," she said. Then she grinned wickedly and continued, "When the Sky People attack us first, then our brutal retribution will be justified."

Hers was not entirely the response he had in mind, but it received a few chuckles from the other warriors – even those who a minute ago had been nodding along to the objections of Tx'kina and Atané. He did not intend to brutalize the mercenaries; but if his warriors were calmed by the thought of doing so, he did not see the need to correct them.

* * *

For the last five months, Mu'kuti's experience with the Omaticaya had recalled fond memories of his time in the Special Forces on Earth. Some of his comrades had enjoyed being on the tip of the spear – storming beaches, blowing up hard targets behind enemy lines. Mu'kuti, however, had preferred the deep reconnaissance missions. For whatever reason, the patient observation of enemy positions suited him. He figured it had to do with his education in physical sciences, where learning took place through careful and meticulous study.

However, his current assignment recalled the worst memories of his time in the Army: sentry duty.

It was one thing to observe a position over many days where there was some activity, where there was nervous anticipation of a possible engagement with the enemy. It was another thing entirely to be on guard for the possibility of activity, where you were just as likely to stand around for hours on end in a constant battle with boredom.

As Jake had taken a not insignificant number of the clan's warriors out for maneuvers, and a usual number were out on hunts, Nakllte, in charge of Hometree's defense in Jake's absence, had put the rest of the available warriors on sentry duty.

If there was any positive aspect to his job, it was that, as he rotated through positions, he could report back an accurate picture of the clan's expected defense plan.

He was just about to make one such report from his low perch in a grove of trees overlooking an ancient riverbed, when he heard someone approaching. It was far too early for his relief, so he immediately went on guard.

Mu'kuti turned towards the noise, spear at the ready, and called out, "Who are you? Show yourself, or make your peace."

Khutxo emerged from the thick jungle and approached the base of the tree where Mu'kuti had taken his post. He looked up and said, "I was wondering if I could have a word with you, brother."

"I'm on duty," he replied. "I can't leave my post."

Khutxo nodded and, with innate skill, quickly climbed the tree and joined Mu'kuti in the branches. "Now you don't have to leave."

Mu'kuti let out a short laugh and replied, "Then let's talk."

"I've been watching you since the night you tried to join my circle," he said, wasting no time getting the conversation underway. "So have my friends. By all accounts, you're a skilled hunter – and the people speak highly of you."

"Thank you, brother."

"Do you still share my opinion about _olo'eyktan_'s course of action?" Mu'kuti nodded. "Good. So when I call on you, can I count on your spear?"

He winced. "I don't want to raise my weapon against another one of the people," he said. "Not even _olo'eyktan_."

Khutxo out his hands. "Neither do I," he said defensively. "But sometimes the threat of violence is as persuasive as violence itself."

He nodded and said, "I understand." He offered a smile and continued, "Yes, you can count on my spear." Satisfied, Khutxo began to leave, but Mu'kuti kept him by asking, "Ignoring the Sky People, why is it that you hold a grudge against Jakesully?"

"Watch yourself, brother," Khutxo said sternly. "I have only just brought you in to my circle, I can change my mind."

"Like I said, I won't raise my spear against another of the people if I don't have to. I also don't want to help one of the people for his own ambitions. I want to know the cause of this conspiracy."

He hesitated, then took a deep breath and said, "I was a friend to our _tsahik_'s original suitor, who was the first one to be suspicious of Jakesully's admission to our clan. But even after Tsu'Tey embraced Jakesully as one of his brothers, and after he gave his life to fighting off the Sky People, our _olo'eyktan_ resisted recognizing the rest of us as his brothers.

"He would not listen to us when we said he shouldn't allow the other Sky People to remain here. And now that the threat of the Sky People has returned, he has not given us assurances that he is willing to do what it takes to remove them from our world for all time." He looked away and crossed his arms. "I don't care to be _olo'eyktan_, Mu'kuti, but if Jakesully won't do what's best for the people, I am prepared to."

"He has created the _kunpongu_," he offered in Jake's defense. "Is that not sufficient?"

Khutxo laughed harshly. "Again, most of them are his friends, not people who have stood up to him. To those who aren't his friends, he offers them the promise of high honors to keep quiet. I don't doubt that they'll eradicate the Sky People if he tells them to, but I doubt that he'll tell them to." He looked back at Mu'kuti. "Have I addressed your concerns?"

Mu'kuti nodded.

"He will be weakest when the Sky People force him to make a decision," Khutxo said as he descended the tree. "I will call on you then."

A few days later, Jake and the _kunpongu_ returned from their wargames, and Mu'kuti was given a reprieve from sentry duty. He took the opportunity the morning after his relief to approach Neytiri. "I see you, _Tsahik_."

She smiled and replied, "And I see you, friend. What can I do for you?"

"I was hoping I could get your counsel."

"Of course." She walked towards an alcove near the ceremonial mound at the heart of Hometree. "Come sit with me."

He did as instructed and, soon, sat cross-legged before her. She took a gourd from off the wall and poured tea into a bowl for them to share. She drank first and said, "What troubles you?"

Mu'kuti drank from the bowl, and then set it between them. "I still haven't been able to make sense of my memories," he said. "But there was one in particular that I had hoped to recover."

"Oh?"

He nodded. "It was the memory of my mating. But as time has gone on, the memory has become less and less clear."

Neytiri took a deep breath and said, "That must be very difficult for you."

"It is," he said as he looked down. "I don't know what that means, but it troubles me very much."

"It may be that your mating was not blessed by Eywa," she said. "In that case, she would not have left a deep impression on your memories. It could be why she's fading from your thoughts."

He shook his head, looked up, and replied, "When I thought about her, I didn't feel pain or regret."

Neytiri leaned forward and gently rested a hand on his knee. She smiled and offered, "Sometimes it is hard for a person to admit that the one they seek for a mate is no longer a practical choice."

Mu'kuti offered a weak smile in response, and then took a deep breath. "I think I may be coming to terms with it," he said. He hesitated before pressing on. "I was hoping you could tell me if it would offend Eywa and our customs if I were to pursue a mate here."

She shook her head. "It is not uncommon for someone to have an unsuccessful mating," she said. "It does not mean that they should never seek a mate, just that they should practice better discretion."

Mu'kuti nodded and said, "Thank you, _Tsahik_."

"You should not have much trouble in your pursuit," she said. "I hear you have already been courted by some of your sisters."

"It's true," he said with a nervous laugh.

"If you find yourself conflicted, I will be happy to guide you towards a suitable mate." She grinned widely and said, "Omaticaya are known for having many fine women."

Mu'kuti chuckled and said, "I will be sure to make a choice with discretion."

* * *

Abe stood with his team around a holotable. "SecOps is six months away, and we easily have a year's worth of work that needs to be done before they get here. And although Chairman Savage has been generally pleased with the progress we've made, he's been insistent on getting Colonel Hall's report. So that's the first item on our agenda today."

He called up the report and generated copies for each team member, then distributed them across the table. "I asked you all to read this before today, so hopefully you've done your homework. First impressions?"

Parker did not hesitate. "It's weak," he said. "It gives way too much deference to the savages. You're going to spend all your time bowing to their demands and not getting the base up and running. In the meantime, they're going to be plotting attacks against us."

"Did you get a chance to consult with Colonel Hall while this was being drafted?"

He crossed his arms and said, "Yeah, but it wasn't exactly productive."

"You didn't offer anything other than genocide," Amy responded, glaring at him. "Ethical considerations aside, we just don't have the resources for that – and when you did have the resources, even you didn't do it." She looked at Abe and said, "The bottom line is that we won't have the resources to conduct offensive operations against the Na'vi. That has to be an absolute last resort option."

"We could still show them that we mean business," Miguel said. "A lot of the gunships and AMP Suits left behind can be brought back to operational status. If we go after the first clan that gives us trouble and knock it back on its heels, the rest of them will get the message to leave us alone."

"Or they just storm Hell's Gate and kill everyone," Amy said. "Devon reported in a couple weeks ago and confirmed our audio surveillance that Jake has trained a highly disciplined, company-sized force to repel any attack – and they're armed with weapons given to them by the renegades. He also confirmed that Jake is under intense political pressure, if you could call it that, to keep the pressure on us, and he may face a coup if he doesn't deliver."

"So let's take them out," Miguel said. "If they're building an army, what more evidence do we need that they're hostile?"

"Didn't you hear me? They have guns, big guns, and they know how to use them. Hundreds of Na'vi with home field advantage fighting to defend their home against two-hundred SecOps mercs who are fighting for money is a guaranteed loss and a bloodbath."

Scott spoke up. "The problem I had with this report is that it understated their hatred for humanity," he said. "No offense, Parker, but you didn't give them a lot of reasons to want to sit down at the negotiating table." He nodded at Abe. "And so far it doesn't sound like you've been able to win Jake over on anything."

Abe shrugged and calmly replied, "These things take time. We still have six months."

"I think Jake's hoping you're willing to wait six months, and then he'll storm the gates as soon as SecOps lands."

"So what do you want to do?" Abe asked. "Are you suggesting the nine of us grab our guns and go Na'vi hunting?"

"I did factor in their hatred for humanity," Amy said before Scott could respond to Abe. "It will show itself in the determination of their resistance, not in any offensive operation. Eywa won't let them kill without cause, otherwise they would have done a lot more than set a few trucks and bulldozers on fire."

"At some point we're going to have to push into their 'sacred' lands," Parker said. "They're going to attack us when we do that, just like they did before. They'll start shooting at our guys for knocking over a few trees."

"That's why I recommend putting more emphasis on remote outposts than trying to force long supply lines," she responded. "It will take more resources, I know. But in the end, it will cost less to build easily defendable stations on the Pandorium deposits than trying to truck every load back to Hell's Gate."

"And what happens when the deposits sit under the Na'vi's homes?" Parker asked. "That's what got us in trouble last time."

"We opt for shaft mining rather than open pit," she said. "Again, I know it's more expensive and less efficient, but the shaft can be dug miles away from the deposit, and we've had adequate drift-making technology to cover the distance for centuries. Even on Earth, we've been mining underneath population centers for centuries."

Abe looked around the table and asked, "Is there anybody who supports Colonel Hall's approach?" Dawn, Jose, and Kim raised their hands. He looked at Matthew and said, "Doctor, you haven't weighed in."

He shrugged. "It doesn't seem necessary. It's your call at the end of the day, and this is outside my field of expertise."

Abe grinned and pressed him. "If you had your druthers, how would you proceed?"

After a few moments of silence while he deliberated with himself, Matthew sighed and said, "I'd leave the Na'vi alone. I don't think we have anything they want, and I don't think there's any point in trying to win them over or fight them off. Get what we came for and get out."

Parker snorted. "Yeah, you wish it were that easy."

"All I'm saying is that the Na'vi have enough reasons to want to wipe us out," Matthew said. "Let's not go imagining ways to piss 'em off even more."

"Can't we just get what's-his-name, Devon, to assassinate Jake?" Miguel asked. "He's obviously the biggest threat, and we know where he is."

"We need the intelligence," Dawn responded. "If Devon kills Jake, the Omaticaya will crucify Devon. Then we won't have any heads-up when they come after us – and at that point, they will."

"Don't we have them under surveillance?"

"We haven't had much luck penetrating their Hometree, which is where they do most of their planning," Dawn replied. "Either the tree's trunk is too thick, or there are too many conversations going on at once to isolate any one of them."

"Dawn's right. We need Devon to keep doing what he's doing," Abe said. "Besides, he's given us a solid layout of their defenses so that if we do need to go in, we know where their weak points are."

"It'd still be messy, though," Amy added. "I estimated fifty percent casualties if it goes well, total annihilation if it goes wrong."

Abe remained silent for a minute while he considered his team's input. The truth was that Amy's assessment had not given him nearly the kind of flexibility he had hoped for. The Na'vi were stubborn, hated humanity, and had overwhelming numbers on their side. If they wanted to, they could wipe RDA's force out without much notice.

On the other hand, if he could stall them for time to get the base up and running, RDA's technological superiority would go a long way towards leveling the balance of power. She was right that they could never conduct an effective offensive operation against the Na'vi without inviting more agony on themselves, not without opting for full-on genocide – which he simply did not have the stomach for – but they could be strong enough to keep the Na'vi resistance minimally effective.

In short, so far he was not looking at a solution any better than what Parker had come up with. He briefly caught Parker's eye, and it seemed that Parker knew he was trapped. Furthermore, he seemed to be relishing the vindication – he hadn't fucked up, the whole situation was fucked up.

His plan had called for weakening the Na'vi's ability to respond to his actions by creating internal divisions, but those were taking far too long to come to any fruition. Where he had hoped to find signs of territorial disputes between the clans, he found nothing that he could exploit. He had hoped Jake had been unable to consolidate his power, but Devon's reports had not given him much to hope for. It had been dumb luck that Neytiri was not already well into motherhood when he arrived, and even then it would be months before he knew whether or not he had anything to build on with her. And although Norm had been pushed out of the renegades, their own conspiracies drawn up without his help could be just as dangerous, if not more so.

"I can already see that we're going to have to revisit this," Abe said with a sigh. "But, for now, I'm going to forward it on to the chairman." He nodded at Amy and said, "Good work, Colonel." She nodded back in response, but even she seemed to lack enthusiasm for the product.

"Okay," he continued. "We have a lot more ground to cover, so I hope you're comfortable."

* * *

Norm sat alone in Hell's Kitchen. Weeks earlier, he might have sat alone in order to gather his thoughts. These days, however, he sat alone because the other avatar team members considered him to be a pariah, if not a traitor. Max would talk to him every once in a while, but their conversations were now principally about keeping the business of keeping Hell's Gate operational; and he would never talk to him when other members of the avatar team were around.

He had more than half expected Amy to desert him, too, since he was no longer useful as a relay between her team and his; and especially once she submitted her report to Abe. To his surprise, however, she had remained interested in their relationship.

She startled him when she approached from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. "How're you doing?" she asked.

"I could be better," he said as she sat next to him. "I haven't seen you since you reported in to Abe. How'd it go?"

Amy shrugged. "The team had a mixed reaction, but the Boss was onboard. That's really all that matters."

"To tell you the truth, I'm a bit surprised," he said. "I didn't think he'd go for the interpretation of the Na'vi."

"In what way?"

Norm shook his head as he thought about it. "I guess I thought he'd expect them to be more docile, more willing to be submissive before the awesome might of RDA."

She chuckled and said, "Well, he has met Neytiri. There's nothing 'docile' about her."

"That's true," Norm said with a laugh. "I'm surprised she didn't just start firing arrows at you guys when she showed up." He shook his head again and said, "I don't know, but I can't help but think he's only going through the motions to try and distract Jake and the others."

"Why?" she asked, her tone somewhat incredulous. "I mean, he's kept up with the reclamation project, even though it failed to impress. He's been willing to wait all this time to let me finish my evaluation, and he never once gave me a specific direction to take it. He was happy to keep military intervention as a last resort. What more do you want?"

"Has he said anything about what his orders are?"

She looked puzzled. "I think his orders are pretty clear, Norm. He's to get this base up and running."

"At all costs?" Before she could respond, he pressed on. "I mean, doesn't it seem strange to you that, despite all his meticulous planning for a mining operation, mercenaries are going to be on the first ship here?"

"Don't you think it shows the Boss' good faith effort that he bothered to tell Jake that soldiers were on the way as soon as he got here?" Amy sighed and said, "Look, I know we've already talked about this at length. I know you have a place in your heart for the Na'vi. I don't understand, though, why you can't see that the Boss is trying to make things different this time around?"

"Because you and I both know that his playbook is pretty thin, despite your best efforts," Norm replied. "Just because the military option may be the last resort doesn't mean it's far down on a long list. The thing is, the Na'vi are stubborn – totally justifiably so, but stubborn all the same. Jake was as bad as they are even before he joined up with them. Your boss is going to run through his options quickly, and then it's just going to get ugly."

"The military solution doesn't mean we go in and kill them all," she said, now much more irritated. "I've told you that I don't want to see that happen. The Boss doesn't want to see that happen."

"So, what are you talking about? Forced relocation? Go in with non lethal force?" He snorted, incredulous at his own suggestions. "Abe's a big fan of American history, so maybe you should bring up the Trail of Tears with him. It didn't work out so well."

"We have to try something," she said. "Anything. We can't just pretend that they're not here, and if they won't negotiate…"

"You'll just take it," he interrupted.

Amy closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if she was trying to fight off a bad headache. She took a deep breath, relaxed her expression, and said, "It's as much their decision as ours. They know what we're capable of, and they know what could happen to them. I don't want to see it happen, but we can't just pack up and leave." She sighed and stood up. "I'm sorry my best efforts don't live up to your expectations."

He stood up and said, "And I'll say it again: What if it's not up to you? What if the order's been given, maybe not by Abe, and you're just here for appearances?"

She hesitated before responding, but she chuckled and said, "Honestly? If I find out that my ass got dragged five light years from home for show, I'm going to be pissed off." She paused, and her expression hardened as she seemed to think about it more deeply. "Yeah, I'll be pretty livid."

"Now do you see where I'm coming from?" he asked – pleaded. "We had the avatar program set up for diplomacy, but Parker just let Quaritch loose. We were just for show, and it almost amounted to not a goddamned bit of good."

Before she could say anything, he took her hand and led her back to his suite. He called up a video screen from his work terminal, and dug deep into Hell's Gate's archived video feeds. "I want to show you your 'non lethal' option."

They watched the events of more than eleven years ago unfold. Jake and Grace were bound and primed for execution. Tear gas scattered the Na'vi, young and old; and before most of them had enough time to get far enough away from their ancient home, Quaritch responded to their arrows, slingshots and spears with high explosives from dozens of gunships.

Despite the time that had passed, Norm was instantly transported back to the link room where he watched the events unfold as they happened. The emotions were just as raw.

When the footage ended, Amy was left standing in silence. She looked at him and said, "You don't think I've seen stuff like that before? You don't think I've seen soldiers ordered into civilian areas – that I've watched missile drones hit enemy targets, only to find out later it wasn't a factory, but instead a church or a school? Those are exactly the kinds of images I had in mind, exactly what I want to avoid up here."

He was taken aback by her response, and it took him a second to articulate as much. "Actually, no, I didn't think you had seen any of that," he admitted. "But the point was that this is what the Na'vi remember. This is what they're thinking of when they think of you and your plan."

"This was almost twelve years ago, and the people responsible for that were all killed in the battle. Can't they be made to understand that?"

"No," he said flatly. "Their connection with Eywa, with their ancestors, means that the past isn't something that can be restricted to just one time and set aside. This is as much a part of their present as what happens to them today."

"I get that," she replied. "But the future still hasn't happened. They have as much power to avoid a repeat of this as we do – more power, even, given that they're holding most of the cards." She paused and added, "I hope they have the good sense to do it."


	16. Entrench

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Abe's video screen alerted him to an incoming communication. Back on Earth, he put masking tape over the indicator light because it was almost constantly on – if Donna did not alert him to the call, he refused to take it. Here, however, the call volume was much lower, and every call was urgent.

He opened the call window. "I'm here."

Jose was on the other end at his post in the refinery's communication station. "We've got a problem, Boss."

"Is it a big problem or a little problem?"

"Big," he said without hesitation. "One of our drones is down – um, drone sixteen."

Abe knew drone one was circling Hell's Gate, and drone two was circling over Jake's clan. If either one of those had gone down, he would have considered it a big problem. For this, however, he thought Jose was overreacting. "Where was sixteen deployed?"

"About one hundred clicks north-northwest of Jake's clan," he said. "We identified them about three months ago as being in somewhat regular contact with Jake."

That did elevate the problem, but only marginally. "Do you have an idea of why it went down?"

"There was a pretty bad storm up that way the other night," he said. "The drones are designed to survive severe storms on Earth, but the air pressure here makes even a light storm severe by comparison. If I had to guess, I'd say a good gust of wind took it out."

"Do you know if they've discovered it or not?"

"The homing beacon hasn't been disturbed since it went down," he replied. "But it's close to the tribe's center – too close to do a self-destruct without drawing more attention than it would be worth. It's only a matter of time."

Abe nodded. "Okay. What was the last communication you picked up from there?"

"Give me a second to play it back." Jose had to rewind the audio a few times before he had a translation. "Other than talk about the storm, it seems like they were excited that the sturmbeest herds were on their way south again."

"So there's nothing to indicate that they've discovered the drone?"

"Not that I can tell, Boss."

He nodded again and said, "Okay, then let's not panic. Run diagnostics on all the drones. If you think you need to call one of them back, don't ask for permission – just do it."

"You've got it."

"And let me know if that tracking beacon begins to move south-southeast."

Jose gave a thumbs-up to the camera and said, "Will do, Boss." He then cut the call.

Abe quickly called up a report on Site Sixteen to weigh whether or not he needed to conduct a more aggressive recovery of the drone. Although that clan had a few communications with Jake's, they were infrequent – or that was at least based on a combination of their tracking and Devon's reports.

He entertained a few scenarios on the off chance that, somehow, Jake was made aware of the drone. Old hardware that had fallen out of orbit? An experiment gone awry?

It was not long, though, before he became bored with the mind game and comforted himself in the knowledge that the drone's loss and its fallout were likely to be minimal. At that, he returned his attention to Kim and Scott's reports on the materials that would be needed to conduct Amy's proposed shaft mining operations.

* * *

Jake lay in the hammock with Neytiri, and he casually brushed his hand over her belly. She was only just beginning to show her pregnancy, and she had another eight months before delivery, but being able to see evidence that their child was more than just the dreams she regularly had filled him with excitement.

She giggled as his hand wandered over to her side. "Jake, you know I'm ticklish there."

He grinned and replied, "Well, unfortunately for you, that's where the baby is. So get used to being tickled."

Neytiri elbowed him playfully. "The baby is not in my ribs," she said.

He ignored her protest and quickly moved on top of her and relentlessly tickled her. She tried to alternate between defending her flanks and fighting him off, but it was when it seemed as though the hammock would tip over and drop them both to Hometree's floor that he finally stopped. Jake rested his brow against hers and kissed her, and she reciprocated without hesitation.

Minutes later, she placed a hand on his chest and slowly pushed him away. "I let you tickle me now, because you will not do it when the baby gets bigger."

Jake grinned and asked, "Oh yeah?"

"It's not good for the baby," she said. Her voice was not stern, but it was a little less light-hearted than a moment earlier.

"Okay," he said. Jake gave her one more playful poke in her side, and she hit his shoulder in response. He turned onto his back and she rested her head on his shoulder. He brushed her cheek and asked, "In your dreams, do you see if it's a boy or a girl?"

Neytiri shook her head. "It has the heart of a warrior – a strong heart. That is all that matters."

"Would you want to know?"

She gave him a crooked smile and asked, "Jake, is this another human obsession?"

"Yeah," he said with a grin. "It is."

She sat up and gave him a kiss. "Our baby will be the same when it is born as it is now. Knowing before then will make no difference." Her smile faded as she looked down at her stomach. "I don't want our child born knowing human things."

Jake took a deep breath and placed his hands over hers, and she interlaced their fingers. He knew that it would be impossible to raise their child without bringing up the alien blood that was in his – or her – father's body, or without the songs which celebrated the defeat of the Sky People. But he knew how important the pregnancy was to Neytiri, and long ago, back when he still doubted their ability to conceive, he had agreed to make sure their children were brought up as Na'vi.

"Okay," he said. "I'll try and keep my human obsessions out of the way."

Neytiri smiled and kissed his hand. As though she could read his thoughts, she said, "I know it's your child, too, but I am the one carrying it."

Sparing him from a response, a messenger came down to their hammock and said, "Excuse me, _Olo'eyktan_, but visitors have arrived and asked for you."

He and Neytiri followed the messenger up to Hometree's crown branches, where four Na'vi and their _ikrans_ had landed. Jake recognized the female at the head of the party as the leader of a nearby clan. "I see you, Laksé."

She stepped towards him and gave him a slight bow. "And I see you, Jakesully." She nodded at Neytiri. "And you, Neytiri." Jake saw her eyes drifted towards Neytiri's belly, and she smiled. "I see Eywa has blessed you with a child, _Tsahik_."

Neytiri's smile was beaming. "Yes. Finally."

Laksé stepped forward and embraced her. "I will remember to send a gift from my people to celebrate your fortune," she said.

"Thank you, _olo'eyktan_," she said as she returned the embrace. "I will accept it for all our children."

Laksé nodded and broke the embrace, then looked at Jake. Her expression hardened as she said, "I wish I was visiting to celebrate Neytiri's pregnancy, but I have more urgent business to bring to your attention."

"Tell me," he said.

She turned to her warriors and ordered them to bring forward a sack that had been tied to one of the _ikrans_. It took two of the three to carry it, and then the third cut the sack open.

Jake's heart sank when he saw the machine.

"My children found this in the trees after a storm several nights ago," she said. "I remember when we fought the Sky People, and their animals made from this skin. I thought you would know what kind of beast this is."

Despite Jake's best efforts to educate the Na'vi about human machines, they continued to believe that the machines were animals with putrid blood. The audiodrone had several spear punctures in it – he assumed from warriors making sure that the beast was dead.

Jake knelt beside the machine and said, "I know what this is. Sky People use it to listen to conversations from far away."

He had become familiar with the drone during his service in the Marines. Each company had at least two drones to use for forward observation and surveillance, although they were much more stripped-down versions of the one now at his feet. He turned the drone over and was relieved to see that the panel which housed the battery and tracking device had broken open, and both were absent.

The Na'vi did not understand a lot about human technology, but they did not need any explanation about why Sky People would want to listen in on their conversations. "They are preparing for an attack," Laksé said. Jake nodded. "How long would they have been listening to us?" she asked. "How much could they know by now?"

"They could have been listening for a long time," he said. "Do you see these panels on the skin? They work like the markers on your body – except rather than give off light, they let light pass through the animal, like it's water." As soon as he finished his sentence, he had a horrible memory.

He looked at Neytiri, and he could tell from her expression that she had the same realization. "The children weren't lying," she said.

Laksé looked confused, but she shook it off. "What do we do?"

"We go inside," Jake said. "Now." Surely Abe knew the drone was down, but with the tracking device removed from the machine, he would not know Jake had it.

Jake knew that the drones could not orbit as high as the tree's crown in order to provide the kind of intelligence Abe would have looked for, but he was afraid that, at that moment, Abe was having the last few minutes of their conversation translated and would soon know that his surveillance operation had been exposed.

Deep inside Hometree, Jake held counsel with Laksé, Nakllte, and Neytiri. "He's known where we are for months," Jake said. "He probably knows as much about our daily routines as we do."

"So let's attack him now so he can't use that knowledge against us," Laksé said. "The Pxayskol people are ready to fight off the Sky People."

Jake shook his head, but before he could explain himself, Nakllte said, "Jakesully, I know you want to honor Eywa's ways and stay our warriors until we have been offended. But this is an offense worthy of an attack."

"I agree," Neytiri said. "If you withhold our warriors now, the people will think you don't want to attack the Sky People at all."

"Thank you both," he replied. "But that's not my reservation. Right now, the Sky People think they have the advantage over us. We can let them continue to believe that right up until they attack. That's when they'll find out their mistake."

"That will only work if we knew just how much they know about our plans," Nakllte said. "Until then, we're just as well off to guess how or when they might come at us."

"We know when they're coming back," Jake said. "And if we are mistaken, our friends among the Sky People will be able to give us warning."

"We haven't heard from Norm in a long time," Neytiri said. "Something may have happened to him. I worry that he's changed his allegiance, or worse."

"Not Norm," he said. "He wouldn't do that to us."

Ignoring the side conversation, Laksé said, "Jakesully makes a good point. Sometimes it's easier to lure an animal into a trap than to try and chase it down." She looked at Nakllte and said, "If you know your home well, you will know where your enemy expects your sentries to be."

Jake could not tell if Nakllte had taken offense to Laksé's insinuation or just paused to consider the point, but he did not respond to her claim.

Laksé did not wait long for a response. She stood and summoned her warriors. "I have to get back to my people," she said. "Thank you for your hospitality, Jakesully. I'm sorry it was not under more pleasant circumstances."

Jake and the others stood with her. "We'd be happy to have you back in better times," he said. "Hopefully those are coming sooner rather than later."

She smiled and replied, "I think they will be soon." Jake raised his brow in curiosity. "I must get back to my people for the hunt festival. _Angtsik_ herds are on the move."

"Thank you for the news," Jake said. Other than the Sky People, the people had dedicated most of their conversations to rumors about the _angtsik_'s return. He hoped the hunt would distract them from the looming war.

* * *

Hometree was alive with music. High in the tree, a handful of exceptionally daring Na'vi swung on large, suspended tree branches to strike oversized drumheads. The sound they made was deep and overwhelming, and each strike sent a vibration rippling throughout the tree. As each performer swung at their own paces, the noise they made was unsynchronized – the arrhythmic, but constantly beating heart of the night's celebration.

Below the drummers, Na'vi danced around firepits while singing a myriad of songs. Acolytes, led by Neytiri, were dressed in elaborate costumes to represent the many animals of Pandora. As they danced, the bioluminescent markers on their bodies flashed in a myriad of patterns – voluntarily or otherwise, Mu'kuti was unsure. The elders, whose dancing days were far behind them, played wind instruments and water drums to accompany the singing.

Mu'kuti and the other hunters danced wildly with their weapons and shields, their faces and bodies covered in paint. He had never cared for dancing back on Earth; but, like many of the clan's celebrations, their libations took care of his inhibitions. He had developed a tolerance for the brew, but he was still regularly outclassed by the other hunters.

In addition to the drinks, the firepits were regularly fed a number of herbs that made the smoke from the fires more potent than they would have been on their own. A number of hunters who danced too close, or inhaled too much, had to be helped as they staggered away in a trance.

Passing from one dance to another, Mu'kuti watched Mo'at conducting a side ceremony with a young Na'vi, away from the firepits. Mo'at and the hunter were encircled by a not small crowd of people who, as Mu'kuti approached, he could hear chanting in low tones. He had missed the initial stages of this rite of passage, but he watched as the youth collapsed in a seizure-like fit, writhing on the ground. More shocking to him than that sight was the fact that none of the people around him seemed to show much concern – which he took as a sign to play it cool.

Minutes later, after much shrieking and clawing, the youth stood, as if coming out of a daze. "The ceremony is finished," Mo'at declared. She smiled, beaming like a proud mother. "Channel your visions in tomorrow's hunt, young warrior.

The people in the circle offered their own congratulations to the youth, and Mu'kuti walked towards the central firepit, where Neytiri was beginning yet another ritual. She held the organ of a large animal over her head and declared, "Hunters! Each of you is courageous, but only through Eywa can you truly be strong. May the spirits flow through you – from _angtsik_'s heart to yours!"

She fell to her knees, pulled a knife from her belt, and stabbed the heart. Blood poured into a large ceramic bowl, which acolytes took turns drinking from. Mehi'a was the first to drink, and she walked from the altar towards the circle. She spotted a warrior nearby, placed her hands on his cheeks, and said, "From _angtsik_'s heart to yours." Then she kissed him, although only briefly.

When she broke the kiss, she turned and locked eyes with Mu'kuti. She walked towards him and, rather than place her hands on his cheeks, placed them on his chest. He could smell the blood on her lips. She looked into his eyes and said, "From _angtsik_'s heart to yours." She kissed him, but unlike with the previous hunter, she lingered. Her hands drifted down his chest, but he stopped her from going far by placing his hands over hers.

In addition to the blood, he could taste a significant amount of _tìngasunilzyu_. When she pushed away from him, she smiled and said, "Take strength from it." Before he could respond, she moved on to another hunter, continuing the ritual.

The festival continued well into the night, and was still going on when he staggered back towards his hammock. However, as he tried to climb up Hometree's branches, his coordination failed him. He landed hard, but rather than agonize over the injury, he started to laugh. He braced himself to stand up, but someone lifted him to his feet.

He turned around, and Mehi'a was there smiling at him. "Are you having trouble, friend?"

"A little," he said with a grin.

"You need to get some air," she said as she took his hands and led him outside. They wandered beyond the light of Hometree's fires, where the night was lit by natural lights; but the noise from the festival carried well into the thick jungle.

She sat him down at the base of a tree and knelt beside him. He looked at her and said, "I enjoyed watching you dance." He laughed and, referencing her costume, said, "I don't know that I have ever seen _pa'li_ dance in the same way, but you captured its spirit."

She laughed with him. "No, I don't think _pa'li_ dance the same way," she said. "And what is your _tireaioang_, Mu'kuti?" Lacking one, Mu'kuti simply growled and clawed at the air. She laughed again and said, "That could be eight kinds of animals!"

"No, it's only my animal. It's my _tireaioang_."

Mehi'a tried to be serious, but she could not make it happen. Still, she said, "This is important. Did you commune with your _tireaioang_ tonight?"

"I communed with many spirits tonight," he said. He gave her a knowing grin and added, "I think you and I communed."

She stood and walked away, saying only, "I will be right back." When she returned a while later – in his state, he could not guess how long it was – she held out for him an _eltungawng_. The worm writhed in her hand, its purple skin flashing rapidly. She did not give him instructions, as he figured she assumed he knew what to do with it; and he did what he most often did when offered an animal by the Na'vi – he ate it.

He was relieved when she did not object or look horrified that he had broken some time-honored ritual.

As he chewed on the worm, its bitter body resisting being devoured, he watched her remove a _kali'weya_ from an impromptu shell container. She carefully held the black, spiderlike creature and brought it to the back of his neck, where it promptly stung him.

Mu'kuti winced, and then he burned. He tried to stand up and accuse her of poisoning him, but his body failed him – not that she was there anyway.

Not that he was anywhere.

He found himself transported from the lush jungles of Pandora to the barren desert of Earth. He heard a commotion behind him, and turned to watch insurgents pouring out from mudbrick buildings, wildly firing their guns at an American platoon of soldiers.

One by one, the soldiers fell in all sorts of horrible contortions of death, all but one. Mu'kuti watched as Master Sergeant Angler stepped from behind his cover and cut down scores of the insurgents with a machinegun that had once belonged to the AMP Suit which burned behind him, its driver's corpse still inside the cockpit.

Angler was screaming – terrified or exhilarated? – and then he was roaring. As the insurgents fell before him, Angler's body began to twist and break into unnatural positions until it had taken the shape of the _nantang_. Then the dead soldiers rose, themselves so transformed.

Abandoning their guns, they leapt forward and tore into the insurgents with their teeth and claws, turning the sand into a red mud with their kills.

When they were finished with the insurgents, they began to circle Mu'kuti. He wanted to fight back, but his body was paralyzed. The _nantang_ which had been Master Sergeant Angler pounced and knocked him to the ground. It growled at him, opened its jaws, and lunged at his neck.

* * *

Mehi'a watched as Mu'kuti's body writhed and tried to fight off _kali'weya_'s toxic sting. But she ignored his pain, safe in the knowledge that his spirit was undergoing a communion with Eywa it so desperately needed. He wailed, vomited, kicked and clawed at the ground. This went on for minutes until, as suddenly as he had come under the toxin's power, he stopped.

He gasped for air, and she went to him. "What did you see?" she asked. She helped him to his feet and asked again, "Did you have a vision?"

His eyes were darting wildly, but for a moment they stopped, fixed on her. She felt him looking deep into her soul. He grinned wickedly and ran off.

She stood there for a moment, stunned by his display, and then she gave chase. "Mu'kuti!" she called out. It was not long before she had chased him so far into the jungle that the sounds of the festival had become muted. "Mu'kuti!" she called again. Few predators dared to come close to a Hometree – those who did not know to be wary were quickly felled by opportunistic hunters and overprotective parents – but going this far out at night was still dangerous.

Mehi'a readied herself to call out to him again when she was tackled. Terrified, she tried to fight off the attack, but she was pinned.

She looked into Mu'kuti's grinning face. "I am that which you have hunted with the bolas, Mehi'a," he said.

It took her a moment to get over her terror and understand what he was saying, but then she laughed nervously and said, "_Nantang_ is a noble _tireaioang_. It suits a hunter of your caliber."

She tried to get up, but he held her down. He did not seem to acknowledge her response and continued, "And like you said, sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted."

His eyes were no longer darting about, but they were dilated more than they ought to have been in the low light of the evening. The lights on his body flashed in confused patterns. He was still experiencing the dream world. She tried to indulge it. "I am not a hunter, just _pa'li_."

Mu'kuti's grin widened. "Then you are fair prey." He leaned forward and, barely above a whisper, said, "It is the way of our world. I need to draw my strength from your spirit."

She tilted her head forward enough to allow her lips to touch his, and he pressed forward to take strength from her. He released his hands from her arms, and she embraced him. He moved his hands over her body, occasionally grabbing at her flesh as though he were consuming her. She twisted underneath him as though to resist, but she had no intention of fleeing from this predator.

Every Na'vi imagines the circumstances of their mating, and this was nothing like what she envisioned. It was feral, but then she was among the jungle's spirits. Mu'kuti's hands did more than consume her, they guided her motions until she was in a position that allowed him to lay claim to her body.

She cried out but urged him on. While he may have been under a toxin's spell, she was becoming intoxicated by a passion that had been waiting for release. Before she fell too far under its power, she reached above her head and took hold of her queue, then brought it to Mu'kuti's. At the moment before they met, tendrils emerged from both their queues and completed the link.

What happened next had most certainly not been part of her visions. She was overcome with alien sights and sounds, but they came in too quick a succession for her to make any sense of. She also saw more familiar sights and sounds, but they also came too rapidly for her to discern where one began and where the other end.

Almost as quickly as she had formed it, the bond broke.

Whatever Mu'kuti experienced must have been just as confusing. In the first moments after their _tsaheylu_ dissolved, he lay still on top of her. Then he propped himself up on his hands to look down at her. They were both breathing heavily, and between his breaths he asked, "What just happened?"

"I don't know," she said.

His eyes were no longer dilated, and the lights on his body seemed to be reacting as she would expect to their activities – shifting between brilliance, but in uniform patterns. Mu'kuti seemed to be, if not sober, thinking more clearly, and in that moment he noticed the physical bond which remained in the absence of their spiritual bond. His expression changed from one of breathless exhilaration to total shock.

He tried to break that bond, too, but Mehi'a brought him close and said, "We're all right." He appeared disbelieving, so she brushed the back of her hand over his cheek and smiled at him. "This is good." Mu'kuti hesitated, but he did not resist.

When morning broke, the held each other's hands on their walk back to Hometree but said nothing. He gathered his spear and shield, and then he went for his _ikran_. Minutes later, the large hunting party departed for the _angtsik_ herd as the people whooped and cheered below.

Later in the day, fighting a headache, Mehi'a sought out Neytiri. "I see you, _Tsahik_," she said with a deferential bow.

"I see you, Mehi'a," she replied with a smile. "How are you this morning?"

"I am—," she let out a short, nervous laugh, "I am in need of guidance."

She walked Neytiri through the events of the night, after which Neytiri took a deep breath and said, "It is very dangerous to perform _Uniltaron_ alone. He could have been hurt very badly."

"I know," she said, her head lowered. "But it would have been bad for the hunt if he had not communed with his _tireaioang_."

Neytiri nodded. "That is also true," she said. "But you should have sought out someone more experienced with invoking the spirit world." When Mehi'a did not respond right away, Neytiri softened her tone and said, "I know you are eager to prove your abilities to channel Eywa, and you have learned better than most. But it is not something you can do on your own. Do you understand?"

"Yes, _Tsahik_. I'm sorry."

Neytiri took another deep breath and said, "As for your _tsaheylu_ with Mu'kuti, that has a much simpler explanation."

"What is it?"

"You two were drunk," she said with a knowing grin. "Your mind and your energy must be in the moment in order to make _tsaheylu_. You cannot ride _pa'li_ while thinking of _ikran_."

She shook her head and insisted, "But the visions…"

"He was in the spirit world," she interrupted. "Eywa was protecting the sanctity of his _Uniltaron_ by keeping you away. It was his vision – you were not meant to see it."

Mehi'a considered her interpretation for a moment, and then nodded. "I think I understand, _Tsahik_." She smiled. "Thank you for your help today."

They stood, and Neytiri embraced her. "I am very happy that you have chosen a mate, Mehi'a. I will always be here to help you through your troubles." When they separated, she said, "When Mu'kuti comes home from the hunt, don't be too eager to try and pursue your feelings for him. He may be just as confused as you are. Let him come to you when he is ready."

"I am glad for your wisdom," she replied, "and I will remember that." Before she left, she asked, "How did your child enjoy the festival?"

Neytiri laughed. "Very well, I think. Jake was worried that it would be too dangerous. I had to assure him that almost all the people were in their mothers' wombs during a festival, and we are okay."

Mehi'a smiled and said, "I think a first child is as hard on the father's mind as it is on the mother's body."

"You're right," she said with a nod. "Hopefully the hunt will settle Jake's mind."

* * *

He was born for this!

Jake whooped as he raced the _angtsik _herd with Rawke; and each time he let out a cry, Rawke would shriek. It was the same for all the hunters and their _ikran_s. It produced the desired effect of terrifying the herd. In this way they were able to push the herd into an open meadow, and from there it was simply a matter of picking off the beasts who could not keep pace with the others.

Jake saw a small one break from the herd and try to run off in another direction. Before he had the chance to direct hunters to it, three of them dove down and launched their bolas at its legs. Two missed, but one solid connection was all it took to trip the animal. It hit the ground with an audible crash, and moments later it was at the mercy of the hunters' arrows and spears.

He continued to track the massive herd, making sure it stayed in the open, occasionally allowing himself a pause to revel in the moment.

Two more beasts broke from the herd and were set upon to Jake's satisfaction. Yet another broke from the herd, but not in a panic like the others. For whatever reason, it had made the decision to take a stand.

One of Jake's hunters dove too close to the defensive animal to fire his bow, and the _angtsik_ quickly bucked its head and managed to knock the _ikran_ and hunter out of the sky. He was horrified by the sight, knowing full well what would likely come next – the hunter would be trampled.

However, he was not the only one to see this, and he watched as another hunter swooped in to aid his imperiled comrade. The hunter fired two arrows at the beast, but both struck the tough, armor hide, inflicting no damage. However, the shots were effective in distracting the animal long enough for the downed Na'vi and _ikran_ to recover and take back to the sky.

The hunter, however, did not quit. A moment later, he dove from his _ikran_ onto the beast's back and, as soon as he could get to his feet, drove his spear down into a space in the animal's tough hide on the back of its neck. As it fell to the ground, the hunter leapt from its back and rolled away from the corpse.

Jake landed nearby to see who the hunter was, and was surprised when he came to his feet. "Mu'kuti?"

Mu'kuti beamed as he brushed some dirt from his knees. "That was not as easy as I thought it would be," he said.

Jake laughed. "If that's your idea of easy, I'd hate to see what you think is hard."

Before he could answer, Mu'kuti's _ikran_ landed nearby and let out a shriek at him. "What are you upset about, Kuraku?" he asked, turning to face the _ikran_. "You had plenty to do with that kill."

"I think he just wants to get back to the chase," Jake said.

Mu'kuti nodded, mounted Kuraku, and took to the sky with a victorious cry. Jake and Rawke followed suit.

It was not long before the Omaticaya hunters had felled enough of the beasts to satisfy the clan's needs without being excessive in their pursuits. When the hunt ended, they faced the hard task of cutting the meat from the corpses, scattered over miles, before the predators and scavengers of the jungle took advantage of their hard work. Small camps were established along the herd's stampede trail and near the corpses to accomplish these tasks.

Jake traveled from one camp to the next, congratulating the hunters on their success. Night had fallen when he arrived at Mu'kuti's camp; but despite the long day and their yearning for sleep, they welcomed his arrival warmly.

"I don't want to take up much of your time," he said. "I know you want to get to sleep. But I wanted to see you and acknowledge your work today." Jake nodded at Mu'kuti and smiled. "Especially you."

The other hunters at the camp reinforced his acknowledgement with a mix of whoops and cries. Mu'kuti appeared to be taken aback by the display of support, and offered a weak smile in response. "Thank you, _Olo'eyktan_ – and my friends. I just found myself caught up in the spirit of the hunt."

"It was more than that," Jake said. "You have a gift for the hunt, and a fearless heart to match."

"Again, thank you."

Jake looked at the other hunters and asked, "You won't mind if I steal him from you for a short time, will you?" They shook their heads, and he indicated for Mu'kuti to walk with him. He looked over his shoulder to ensure that they were out of earshot, and then he said, "I'll be honest, Mu'kuti. When you first came to the clan, I had you figured for trouble."

He chuckled. "I don't blame you," he said. "If I were in your position, I might be mistrustful, too."

"Well, that is all very much in the past, now. You have proven yourself to me and, more importantly, to the people." He stopped walking and turned to face him. "War with the Sky People appears unavoidable, and I need the best warriors ready to repel them. Can I count on you to be there for the people when war comes?"

Mu'kuti nodded so deeply that he almost bowed. "Of course, but I was under the impression that there was no more room in the _kunpongu_."

Jake took a deep breath and frowned. "There isn't, but the truth is that many of them will likely die in battle. Warriors have to be ready to take their place."

"I would never wish for one of my brothers or sisters to die in battle," he replied. "But if they should fall in defense of the people, I will be there to take their place."

Jake smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "I hope I don't need to call on you, but thank you for being willing." He nodded towards the camp. "Now, let's forget the war for tonight and celebrate today's hunt."


	17. Breakthrough

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – This is probably going to be the most graphic chapter of this series, and it pushes hard against FFNet's "T" rating; so I have a tl;dr at the end for those of you who may be uncomfortable with it. This is the beginning of the end, with the final chapters coming this weekend.

* * *

"What would the Fourth of July be without fireworks?" Amy asked with a broad grin.

Norm rolled off of her and onto his back, kicking off the sheets in which they had become tangled. "Good, old-fashioned, American fun," he said with a dry laugh.

He did not see her roll her eyes, but he had come to read her well enough to know that she had. "Not much for the holiday?"

"America's been bought up and sold out by corporations for centuries," he said. "What independence are we celebrating? And when was the last time you saw a baseball game without an exopack, or had a fresh hot dog to grill?"

"Thank you, Mr. Buzzkill. I'm glad I didn't bring it up before we started." She turned on her side and glared at him. "You know, I didn't put on the uniform to serve some corporate master."

They had had this argument before. He had grown up in a home where civic duties were considered an afterthought; she had grown up devotion to patriotic ideals was almost compulsory. Their working arrangement had forced them into a number of arguments over corporate responsibility and government oversight – or the lack thereof.

The fights always ended the same way. Neither of them was persuaded by the other side, but they respected each other's intellect and passion; and so they kept coming back into each other's arms.

However, he wanted to avoid starting up the cycle today. He took her hand and his and said, "Sorry. It just kind of came out."

Amy smiled and squeezed his hand. "You're full of shit," she said, "but apology accepted."

He smiled back at her, but only briefly. "Listen, there is something I want to talk to you about."

"I'm listening."

"I think I've come to terms with the fact that there's nothing I can do to win back the other avatar drivers' trust," he said. He had not thought the words would come so easily, but he supposed that, since they were true, it should not have been difficult.

Amy frowned and said, "They were just blindsided. It's just going to take them some time to get over it."

"It's been over two months," he replied.

"So they're stubborn." She grinned and said, "Like you wouldn't know anything about that."

Norm chuckled and said, "Birds of a feather—," letting his voice trail off. Even though it was more than true that his once friends and colleagues could be as stubborn as him, they were also great friends who had endured and overcome unimaginable challenges.

He missed their friendship.

"Anyway," he said with a sigh, "even if they do come around, I don't know that it's going to happen before SecOps gets here." He took a deep breath and asked, "I want to know where this relationship is going." She appeared surprised and hesitated to respond, so he pressed on. "I mean, do you just like what we do, or—." This time, the words were not so easy to come by – not because he did not believe them, but because it was the one thing he could not read about her.

"Or do I love you?" He nodded. She lowered her head was silent for what seemed like forever, idly rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. Was she thinking about how to articulate her feelings, or the best way to let him down?

She looked him in the eyes and said, "You can piss me off. But, yes, I love you." Even though he had hoped to hear it, he must have looked disbelieving. She smiled and said it again, "I love you, Norm."

He embraced her as they kissed, and for him it felt like a great weight had been removed from his heart. The loneliness he had borne for too long – the distance of his family, the loss of Trudy, the rejection by the Na'vi, abandonment by his colleagues – was broken.

They held each other close and spoke barely above whispers; not because of their proximity, but because of the seriousness of Norm's next question. "What are you going to do when I'm sent back to Earth?"

"I won't be much more than two years behind you," she said. "I can wait for you if you can wait for me."

He shook his head. "Amy, they're either going to lock me up or put me in a malfunctioning cryo chamber like your guy still in orbit."

"Norm, we've been over this. Having you go to trial or suspiciously die would be too much of a headache, even for RDA."

"They already have a cover story, and our families as hostages." He took a deep breath. "And even if I do make it back to Earth, I'm not going to sign some non-disclosure agreement. I don't care if people don't believe me, but I won't keep what happened here a secret."

Amy rested her hand on his cheek and pleaded, "Why do you want to make that kind of trouble for yourself?"

"Because it's the right thing to do." He put his hand over hers and squeezed it. "And you know it, too." She did not respond, but he saw in her eyes that he had gotten through to her. "If something does happen to me – to the others – will you go public?"

"Norm—." She hesitated. "Norm, I don't know that I can. I know what happened before was wrong, but I'd rather try to make it right than to dig up the past."

"Amy, I can't live without trying to give justice to the people who have suffered here. And if we're going to have a life together, I need you to be with me on that."

He found love again, and now he risked destroying it. But he had made promises to himself and others before he set out on this endeavor, and his principles were uncompromising.

"I don't want to have to make that choice," she said, looking away from him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then after a moment added, "But if something happened to you – if they do something to you – then, yes." She looked him in the eyes and nodded. "I'll go public."

* * *

When he returned from the hunt, Mehi'a had approached him and said that they would have a healthier mating if they slowed down. At the time, he was more than willing to accept her terms; he had only wanted to maintain the appearance of pursuing a mate, he did not actually want one.

Unfortunately for his plans, Mu'kuti had harbored deeper emotions for her than he cared to admit. It had been several months since she had asked to spend more time with him, but even before then he had enjoyed the time they spent together. She had a calming effect on him; and even though his many accomplishments during his time with the clan had ulterior motives, he had appreciated it when she celebrated his success.

So even though he had felt like he was going to have a heart attack on the night that they had consummated their relationship – in her traditions, bonded for life – he had come to terms with how his subconscious, set free by toxins, could have allowed it to happen.

Mu'kuti still did not understand what had happened when she had tried to form _tsaheylu_ with him. Doctor Augustine's notes had never gone into detail about the bond that happened between to Na'vi, and it certainly was not one of the training programs that he had trained with on the _Cybele_. He had expected it would have been like bonding with the other animals on Pandora; but he could not describe the experience from that night. He was just as ready to accept Neytiri's explanation that they were both too intoxicated to have a meaningful connection.

Mehi'a had said that she was willing to wait for him to be ready to attempt to mate again. This morning, having spent a few weeks building up to it, he had delighted her when he said he wanted to give their relationship a fair try.

In the afternoon, she took him deep into the jungle, following the river downstream for miles. Along the way they took playful jabs at each other – they would swat at each other's tails, or try and push the other into the river – but she would push him away whenever he tried to become more intimate. "Not here," she would have to remind him. "There is a better place."

Eventually they came to where the river emptied into a small pond, above which there was a rocky outcropping. They climbed a narrow path to the summit just as the twin suns began to set. Even though the rocks did not rise nearly as high as the trees around the pond, there was a clearing in front of it; and from their vantage, they could see beyond the clearing and for miles down the landscape.

She stood in front of him as he looked over the jungle, then up to the sky. Polyphemus loomed large, as usual; but the rim of its mighty disk was particularly close to the twin stars and so it glowed more brilliantly. He stared so long and so intently at the scene that it was not until Mehi'a's tail casually brushed against the inside of his leg that his trance was broken.

He turned his attention to her just as she was setting aside the last of her few clothes and ornaments. "Eywa shows itself to us in this place," she said. "It is here that we should be open to each other." Mehi'a turned to him, silhouetted by the suns' light, illuminated by her own body.

For the first time, he saw the beauty in her form.

He nodded at her and, taking her cue, allowed himself to be natural before her. He had come a long way since the crude, bare loincloth that had sustained him through the jungle. With each kill, he added a tooth to his necklace. On his long treks, he picked up unusual rocks and polished them into beads for his braids. When he would pass by the loom, there was always a child willing to craft him a small armband or decorative ties for his tail, less for friendship and more to pass the time while their parents made more elaborate textiles. Even his knife's sheath was painted with images of the animals whose lives he had ended.

Whereas he had been uncomfortable in this form on the cold deck of the _Cybele_, here in the warmth of Pandora's dusk, he felt no shame, no embarrassment. It felt natural.

The lights on her body began to pulse, and when he reached out to brush her cheek, he saw that his body had begun to show his anticipation. She closed her eyes and pressed his hand against her, turning slightly to kiss his palm and fingers. "I see you, Mehi'a," he said quietly.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. "I see you, Mu'kuti."

He embraced her and they kissed. He lifted her up, and she locked her legs about his waist, crossing her feet at the base of his tail. He lowered her to the ground, laying her on the mossy sheen which covered the rocks.

As their bodies moved together, he felt her hands move up his back, then over his neck and to the base of his queue. As she took his queue and brought it to hers, he stopped and put his hand over hers. She took her hand off his queue and held hers, and together they formed the _tsaheylu_.

Far unlike the bonds he had formed with direhorses and banshees, and further unlike the chaotic bond which they had formed weeks ago, Mu'kuti saw clear visions from Mehi'a's life. In particular, he saw their many interactions from her perspective, beginning from the time she began nursing him to health to the few minutes ago.

He had not expected this, and he worried about what she might be seeing of his life. He got his answer when she unlocked her legs and, with a hiss, used her feet to violently push him off of her.

She reached into her pile of clothes and withdrew her knife. "Who are you?!" she demanded, her ears turned back. "_What_ are you?"

If the visions she had seen were as clear as the ones presented to him, he knew there was no point in denying them. He held a hand up and calmly ordered, "Mehi'a, put the knife down."

Mehi'a hissed again and lunged at him. He ducked out of the way and managed to get to his own knife. Mu'kuti got to his feet and turned his knife on her. "I don't want to hurt you, Mehi'a. Please put your knife down."

She was breathing rapidly and bearing her fangs. "Who were those Sky People? Are you _uniltìranyu_?"

"No," he said honestly. He the body may be for an avatar, but he was not a dreamwalker as she knew them. "This is my body. I live in this world."

"There are no Sky People in this world," she said. "There were no trees in your world, but there is a jungle here!" She shouted at him, "Tell me who you are!"

He tried to take a step towards her, but she thrust her knife at him to keep him at bay. He was close enough, though, that he could see tears beginning to well in her eyes. "Please tell me who you are," she begged.

"The Sky People sent me to learn about the people, to find a way for there to be peace between us."

She shook her head and shrieked at him, "You lie!" He knew it was a powerful accusation for her to make. The Na'vi language did not have a word for lying until humanity arrived and taught it to them. "There was no peace in your visions, only fighting. Only deceit."

"There doesn't have to be," he said. "But if you tell Jake about me, there will be war. I can't let that happen."

Mehi'a began to sob, and her hand holding the knife began to shake. "I chose you," she said. "Why would you do this?"

"I didn't want to hurt you. I still don't." He tried one more time. "Mehi'a, please put down your knife."

She took a series of deep breaths, and her arm slowly came down. He thought that he had won her over, but he was wrong. She was only steeling herself for a fight. "You will die, Demon," she said pointedly. "May Eywa leave your body to rot!"

She hissed and lunged at him again.

Mu'kuti wished she had seen that he was a soldier long before coming to Pandora, perhaps even before she was born. She was an amateur compared to him. He stepped away from her thrust, quickly disarmed her, and then stabbed his knife upward into her ribs.

Mehi'a cried out as his knife penetrated her, and she dropped to her knees. He held her as she fell, going onto his knees with her.

She was crying as she made a futile attempt to fight him off, be he kept her restrained. He held her close and tried to calm her as though she were an infant, rocking her gently and whispering in her ear. "You have to be a warrior, Mehi'a. Meet your ancestors with strength."

Mehi'a took a series of short but deep breaths, calming herself. "Tell me— Tell me who you are."

He said to her in English, "My name is Devon Angler." She began to sob again as he brought his knife up to her throat. He spoke to her one more time in words that she would understand. "I'm sorry."

* * *

He was being shaken awake. "Boss? Boss, you have to get up."

Abe opened his eyes and looked at Dawn. "What happened?"

"It's Devon," she said with panic in her voice. "He's seriously compromised. Jose's at the secondary terminal talking to him, and he radioed for me to get you."

That woke him up. He shot out of bed and ran towards his office, not bothering to get dressed beyond his boxers and undershirt. Dawn followed him, and he grabbed a radio headset on his way out. "Are you there, Jose?"

"Yeah, Boss. Devon's freaking out."

Abe's mind raced with the possibilities of what could cause a trained and experienced Special Forces soldier to freak out. "Patch his conversation into my office terminal in two minutes."

"Got it."

Abe and Dawn entered his office in far less time, and Jose already had patched the communications back to his terminal. Abe opened the channel and ordered, "Report."

Devon might not have been "freaking out," but he was absolutely in a panic. "It's over, sir," he said in English. "I'm compromised and need immediate extraction."

He did not bother to reprimand Devon for not speaking in Na'vi. He could guess that the situation was serious enough that it no longer mattered. "Tell me what happened. How are you compromised?"

"Stupid mistake, sir. I got involved with a female."

Abe's temper very quickly hit boiling point. He looked up at Dawn, who fidgeted in her chair under his gaze. He slammed his fists down on his desk. "I fucking warned you!" he shouted.

"I know, sir."

"I told you _explicitly_ to not fuck around – to literally not fuck around."

"Yes sir."

"So, what happened?" he asked tersely. "In the throes of passion, did you blurt out some old girlfriend's name?"

"No sir." He sighed and began to stutter, "We were – Yes, sir, we were – She could read my thoughts, sir."

"Make some sense, goddammit!" he shouted. "Did you discover, to your dismay, that your girlfriend has psychic powers, or is this your own fault?"

"It has something to do with the _tsaheylu_ – the bond – sir," he replied. "The natives are able to read and exchange each other's thoughts and memories through it. I just thought – I thought it would be something else."

Abe buried his face in his hands and then rubbed his temples. "So then what happened? Did she go and tell Jake?"

"No sir, I killed her."

His heart stopped for a moment. Abe looked up, and even Dawn looked ashen. "Come again?"

"She's dead. We were several clicks south of the clan, and I couldn't let her go back."

"So even though they don't know you're a spy," Abe said, "they'll have you fingered for a murderer."

"Yes sir."

"That's great." He slammed his fists again and shouted, "That is just fucking great!"

"Sir, I am in an ideal extraction location. There is no clan nearby, and I'm in the open. A Samson could easily…"

"You're not getting extracted!" Abe yelled, cutting him off.

The line was silent for a moment. "Sir?"

"You're in breach of contract, Devon." He paused to let that sink in. "I told you that if you got tied down with the natives, I'd leave you here. If you want out, then you walk your giant, blue ass here – and then I'll think about it."

"That's a death sentence!" Dawn protested.

Her indignation quickly withered away under his gaze. "What's the punishment for murder?" he asked pointedly. "What's the punishment for a spy caught in enemy territory? I gave him orders, and he disobeyed them."

Abe had left the line open as he rebuked Dawn. Devon responded, "Understood, sir. I'll see you in a few days."

"Get moving," he said, and then turned off the communications channel. He took a deep breath and looked at Dawn. His temper was still hot, but rather than yell, he spoke with steady voice. He knew from experience that it unnerved more people when he appeared calm when they expected him to be wild with anger. "You had something to do with this."

"Boss—," she began, but her voice trailed off. Dawn swallowed and nodded her head. "Yeah, I did."

"How?"

"It was starting to look bad for him to not be pursuing a mate," she said meekly. "So I told him to at least appear interested."

"Yeah?" She nodded. "Well how the fuck does he look, now?" He leaned back in his chair and said, "You're lucky I don't consider you in breach of your contract, too."

"Yes, Boss."

He nodded at the door and ordered, "Get out." Dawn did not hesitate.

Abe stood up and paced about the room, his emotions flying between anger and panic. Hours passed before his mind had managed to settle. He had lost his best source of intelligence, which was a hard blow, but at least the security breach had been contained.

He regretted her death, but it was not his call. He committed himself to not take the fall for it. He thought of Devon and said under his breath, "I hope you rot in that jungle."

* * *

She waited for him to stop speaking in that horrible, alien language. Was he talking to her? Was he conducting some kind of demon ritual over her death? She waited for him to run off into the jungle. Then, and only then, did Mehi'a allow herself to whimper in response to the pain.

Mu'kuti – Dev'angler – had tried to end her suffering with a coup de grâce, as though she were an animal at the end of the hunt. However, his cut had been too shallow, and so she tried to lie still until he left.

But as she thought about her situation, she wished that he had cut her more deeply. She was bleeding to death, and it would not be long before predators picked up her scent. She would be torn apart.

Mehi'a began to cry again. She was mad at herself for believing his ridiculous story. She was mad at herself for not properly reading the sign Eywa had given her when they first made _tsaheylu_. The chaotic visions were meant to be a warning. If only she had understood them, she could have warned the people.

She managed to onto her knees, ignoring the sharp pain which consumed her body, and crawled towards the edge of the outcropping. If she was going to die, she wanted to face the beauty of the world she would leave behind.

At that moment, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She expected to see a pack of _nantang_ making their way up the narrow path to devour her, or a wandering _palulukan_. Instead, an _atokirina'_ fluttered towards her, it white glow pulsing as it approached.

Mehi'a held her hand out to it, and it came to rest on her bloodied palm. Despite her inevitable fate, she allowed herself to feel happiness that Eywa had not abandoned her.

The sacred seed began to flutter away. Mehi'a had missed one of Eywa's signs, but she was determined to not miss another. She willed herself to stand and follow the seed into the jungle.

Each step was arduous. She was amazed she made it down the cragged peak. As she entered the jungle, she again feared an ambush by predators; but then she noticed that she was surrounded by _atokirina_'. No creature would dare attack such a powerful sign of Eywa. The glow of the seed pack pierced the few shadows of the bioluminescent jungle. If any animal _did_ dare to hide in waiting, she would see it.

Eventually, though, her body became too weak. Her vision became blurred. Her will was not strong enough to carry her any further, and she collapsed.

Mehi'a wondered why Eywa would guide her to die in this place, away from the beauty that had been before her. But then, in a brief moment, her vision was clear, and the flow from the _atokirina'_ faded to allow her to see beyond the next step; and she saw _utral aymokriyä_ before her. Eywa was giving her the gift of communing with her ancestors in her final moments.

She assumed that this place must have once been home to a clan of the people, or else the tree could not have grown.

Mehi'a could not stand, so she crawled towards the trunk's base. She raised her hand to grab one of the tendrils, and brought her queue to bond with it.

She smiled as her ancestors greeted her and promised to take away her pain. Her suffering would not end by a cold blade, but with Eywa's warm embrace.

_Atokirina'_ landed on her open palm.

She closed her hand around it.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

tl;dr – Amy agrees to go public with RDA's crimes; Devon kills Mehi'a; Abe effectively sentences Devon to death; Mehi'a lives long enough to have her spirit join her ancestors.


	18. Collapse

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

It was not in his nature to worry. However, nobody could deny that the many dangers which called the jungle home; and this was a matter of family.

Tseyo sought out Jakesully late in the morning, finding him at the archery field in the middle of teaching a few youths the ways of the bow and arrow. He patiently waited for a break in the lesson, when the youths eagerly fired arrows at targets downrange – and by their aim, a little too eagerly – to approach him. "I see you, _olo'eyktan_."

"I see you, Tseyo," he replied with a slight nod. "You look worried."

"Mehi'a went out with Mu'kuti the day before yesterday," said with some reservation. Mating may be natural, but it was not so natural to talk about his sister in that respect. "With your permission, I would like to gather a band and take the _pa'li_ out to search for her."

Unlike the clans of the plains, the Omaticaya did not have nearly enough _pa'lis_ to cover all their warriors; and a search from the back of an _ikran_ would not allow him to peer through the jungle's thick canopy. He needed permission for him to ride out into the jungle.

Jakesully, however, chuckled and said, "I appreciate your concern, Tseyo, but you know as well as I do that some new mates will take more than one night with each other."

He did know that. But he also knew his sister. "She hasn't been this long away from home since _Iknimaya_ – years ago."

"This is no less a rite of passage," he replied, "if not _the_ rite of passage, a lifelong bond between two people." He paused and said, "If she's not back tomorrow, you have my permission to take out the _pa'li_ with your friends and search."

Tseyo had a restless sleep that night, and in the morning there was still no sign of her. That afternoon, he gathered together a few of his and Mehi'a's friends and rode out in search of her.

Despite hoping to get speed from the _pa'li_, it took a frustrating amount of time to travel to all the suspected places that she and Mu'kuti could have absconded off to. There were a few places popular with the people – they discovered another pair at one such place – and then several others that Tseyo and Mehi'a's friends knew were popular with her.

It was two days, however, before they had traveled to the pond downstream from Hometree. It was a long trek if taken by foot – Tseyo and his friends had to dismount and leave their _pa'li_ under guard upstream, as the path was too narrow for them – and on the periphery of the Omaticaya's territory, and so had been ruled out sooner.

He, like all hunters, was trained how to track prey without being seen or heard. He gladly abandoned those principles and called for her as loud as his breath could carry his voice. "Mehi'a!" He waited. "Mehi'a! Mu'kuti!"

Tseyo's sighed and directed his friends fan out to look for signs of life. If Mehi'a and Mu'kuti were here, they would have to be found.

Vezek, Mehi'a's closest friend, put a hand on his shoulder. "There is one more place I can think of, about a day's travel south of here," she said. "But after that—," she shook her head and held two fists to her chest.

The only people who survived more than eight nights in the jungle had songs sung in honor of their uncanny survival skills. The Omaticaya had no such songs for their people; and as much as he loved Mehi'a, he knew she did not possess the ability to survive for so long.

They were about to abandon the site when, from the cragged outcropping on the pond's banks, Kenonyan, one of his friends shouted, "Tseyo! You need to see this."

He rushed up the narrow path to his friend, where a bloodied handprint had been made on the rockface. "It's too small for a male's hand," Tseyo said, holding his hand up against it. He would not admit it that it was her handprint, but he continued, "She must have been bracing herself on the walk down the path."

Kenonyan nodded. "There are more of these prints along the rocks as you go farther up." He and Tseyo headed to the summit, where a knife lay on the ground near a dried pool of blood. He found the knife's sheath among a pile of clothes, and the patterns which had been painted on it were unmistakable.

Tseyo stayed silent while his mind raced with possibilities. His friend offered, "These rocks would not are hard for _nantang_ to climb. Maybe they were surprised and tried to fight them off."

"Do you see any tracks?"

Kenonyan shook his head. "The only tracks are in the blood, and they belong to – to a person."

He considered the possibility anyway, but he noted that the knife was not bloodied. Even if she had been attacked, she should have been able to at least manage one or two strikes. He was about to respond when Vezek called from the rocks' base, "Tseyo! There are tracks leading into the jungle."

"Whose?" he asked.

"People and _nantang_."

He sheathed Mehi'a's knife and tied it to his belt beside his own knife, then regrouped with the others at the jungle's edge. Although the person's tracks were old, the _nantang_ tracks were recent and followed those of the person. They took their bows from their backs and nocked arrows, preparing themselves for an encounter with a pack.

They made careful and deliberate advances along the trail, eyes darting about for any signs of a potential ambush.

Tseyo was the first to spot the _nantang_ corpses. Their flesh was burned, but not by fire. Vezek spotted the source and said urgently, "_Somtìlor_!" The plants were barely waist-level, but they were known to be deadly to those who were too close when they exploded at the end of their lives. The patch of _somtìlor_ that was nearby all had fat stems and were brighter than normal, a clear warning that they were ready to burst.

The scouts hurried down the trail, and Vezek turned to fire an arrow at the plants to ensure they were not unpleasantly surprised on their way out of the jungle as the _nantang_ had been on their way in. The plants violently burst, and their acidic innards spilled out in a wide radius.

"The person's tracks continue on," Kenonyan said. "We should keep going."

"There were only three _nantang_ there," Vezek said as she nocked another arrow. "The rest of the pack may still be out there."

"I don't see their footprints," Tseyo replied as he made more strident steps down the path. "Let's go."

Shortly thereafter, they came to the end of the trail at an _utral aymokriyä_. Having stumbled onto the sacred ground, they quickly returned their arrows to their quivers. The tree's tendrils swayed although there was no wind to push them, and the scouts reverently approached. However, when Tseyo saw the shape at the tree's base, he rushed forward.

He pushed the tendrils out of the way as he neared the tree's trunk, and then he collapsed to his knees. Mehi'a's body was covered in dried blood from a cut neck and punctured side. In the days since she had come to rest at the tree's base, a number of insects and small scavengers had been by to sample her putrefying flesh.

Tseyo was quickly overcome by grief and began to wail.

The others were quick to come to his side and did their best to console him, embracing him and sharing his grief, trying to give him comfort in the knowledge that her energy had departed in such a sacred place.

It took minutes for him to calm down enough to begin to think clearly. Her wounds left no question about how she died. "Why would he do this?" he asked.

"It doesn't matter," Vezek said – herself grief-stricken at the loss of her friend. "It's unjustifiable."

"It matters to me," he said as he managed to get to his feet. "I want to know why this happened." He saw her right hand was clinched, as though it was holding something. He knelt down beside her and, uncurling the stiff fingers, saw the _atokirina'_. It took him a moment to read the sign, but then he reached out for one of the tree's tendrils and formed _tsaheylu_ with it. "Help me find her," he said to his friends.

"Tseyo, she hasn't yet been taken by Eywa," Kenonyan said. "She won't be there."

"You saw the blood at the pond," Tseyo responded. "She should have died there, but she didn't." He held up the seed which Mehi'a had captured in her last moments. "Eywa brought her here for a reason. She's here."

Kenonyan and Vezek exchanged a skeptical look, but whether out of respect for his grief or because he had persuaded them, they each took a tendril and formed a bond.

The voices that Tseyo heard were ancient. People had not been here for many generations, and the tribe had been small. He hoped that would be easier for him to discern Mehi'a's voice from the rest of them, and he called out for their help.

It was Vezek, however, who found Mehi'a's energy first. She grabbed Tseyo's arm and, her face ashen and eyes wide, said, "I don't think you're going to believe this."

* * *

Jake heard the people's cries before he made it to Hometree's floor. He stepped out into the open and saw a small crowd following Tseyo and his _pa'li_, crying and singing short songs of mourning.

When Tseyo dismounted, Jake saw the body wrapped in a shroud made from fronds and tied to the _pa'li_'s back. He thought back to the moment he saw Tom's body in the morgue, and his heart broke for Tseyo.

Neytiri came to his side and put a hand over her mouth as Tseyo untied Mehi'a's body. He assumed she was thinking of her sister.

People stepped forward to offer Tseyo help in carrying Mehi'a, but he refused their aid. Holding the body like a parent might cradle a child, Tseyo approached Jake and Neytiri, then laid his sister's body at their feet.

When he did not stand, Neytiri knelt, reached out and placed a hand on his cheek to console him. "Tseyo, I'm so sorry. She was loved by the people."

"Not all the people, _Tsahik_," he replied. "It wasn't the jungle or the beasts who released her energy," he said. His voice rose in anger when he declared, "Mu'kuti killed her!"

Jake was stunned – and from the many gasps he heard from the people who had gathered around, he was not the only one. Along with the hunter-warrior culture came no shortage of aggression among the people. There were more than a few serious fights, and generally accepted that warriors may be called upon to die in war, but murder was a crime almost unheard of; as rare as warfare between tribes.

Tseyo undid the shroud and revealed the cut across Mehi'a's neck. He had cleaned the body, per the people's burial customs, but Jake could easily imagine the kind of bloodletting that would have resulted. Tseyo then revealed the puncture in Mehi'a's side. That wound would have been deadly on its own.

Neytiri was also taken aback. "Why would he do this?" she asked.

"I can tell you," he said. "My sister was with Eywa and our ancestors in her last moments. She was able to show them what happened to her, and we saw it for ourselves." Tseyo stood and addressed the people. "Mu'kuti was _uniltìrantokx_! The Sky People sent him to deceive us, and to trick us into peace with them."

The people were variously shocked and outrage, and very quickly people began to accuse Jake of allowing a dreamwalker into their midst. He denied it immediately, but then Khutxo emerged from the crowd and said, "Admit it, _olo'eyktan_ – Jakesully. You could never abandon your demon heritage! You carry it with you. You allow those Sky People to continue to infest our world because you can't live without them here."

Jake was about to respond, but Tseyo said, "You aren't innocent in the conspiracy, Khutxo."

"What are you talking about, acolyte?" He chuckled and asked, "Are you accusing _me_ of being _uniltìrantokx_?"

"No, but you knew Mu'kuti's secret. That's why you let him into your circle, and why you conspired with him against Jakesully."

Khutxo looked far less humored, and his tone was more serious. "Be careful, Tseyo," he warned.

"It's no secret you despise _olo'eyktan_," he said. "It's no secret, either, that you choose your friends carefully. What other reason could you have for bringing Mu'kuti into your circle than if he told you his plans. You allied with the Sky People, because they promised you leadership once they drove out Jakesully!"

Khutxo had his fill of Tseyo's accusations. He hissed, withdrew his knife and lunged at him. As Tseyo was going for his knife, Neytiri was able to intercept Khutxo and landed a solid punch to his stomach, followed by another one to his jaw. He fell to the ground, and she kicked his knife away. "You do not raise your weapon on someone in mourning!" she yelled at him.

Between coughs, Khutxo replied, "He bore false witness against me, Neytiri. He doesn't have that right, even in mourning."

"Maybe not," Jake said as he stood over Khutxo and forced him to his feet. "But who says it's false witness? I've known for a while, now, how you feel about me. I've heard the rumors. So, come clean. Did you ever conspire with Mu'kuti against me?"

"Jakesully, I didn't know…"

Jake interrupted him with another punch to his stomach. "Answer the question!"

"Yes!" he replied, doubled over and gasping for breath.

Jake threw him to the ground and searched for his trusted lieutenants. "Nakllte, Naw'ngié, bring his friends forward."

The direct order was necessary. Having heard Tseyo's accusations and witnessing Khutxo's response, they pushed the co-conspirators forward. Jake's lieutenants only had to corral them. Fyatia spoke without being prompted. "He's telling the truth," she said. "We didn't know Mu'kuti was _uniltìrantokx_. We would have killed him."

"Would you have?" he asked, injecting his doubts into each word.

"We don't have any love for the Sky People," she insisted. "We would have gladly ripped out his demon heart."

Jake took a deep breath while he considered what to do with his would-be deposers. He appealed to the people. "What do all of you think? Could they have been in league with the Sky People?" Most of the people shouted in the negative, but a not insignificant number believed Tseyo's version of events – and they called for an array of severe, sometimes imaginative punishments. Their calls appeared to rattle Khutxo and his friends.

He raised his hands to calm the people. "I don't blame you for holding a grudge, Khutxo. I don't even know if you knew Mu'kuti's true identity. But you did want to take what was never yours to begin with, and you would have divided the people when we needed to stand together."

Khutxo looked like he wanted to respond, but the threats of Nakllte's spearhead and Naw'ngié's knife kept him quiet.

"If you want to reestablish your trust with the people, then take your friends and go find Mu'kuti. Bring him here – alive."

Khutxo did respond to that. "What if we can't find him, much less alive?"

He crossed his arms and replied, "Then don't come back."

"You can't do that!" Fyatia cried.

"Yes, I can," he said plainly. "You may not like it, but I am _olo'eyktan_. I have the responsibility of protecting the people. What you and your friends wanted to accomplish threatens their safety, and I will not have it. So gather what you need to find Mu'kuti, or gather what you need to start a new life. It's up to you."

They were silent until Khutxo said, "We will find him, and I will have my name clean of these ridiculous accusations."

Jake looked at Nakllte and said, "Make sure they get a good start." Nakllte nodded and, with the help of a few other warriors, kept his rivals under escort while they prepared for the search. He turned to Naw'ngié and said, "Get your best warriors, and prepare them to ride."

With the debate over, most of the crowd dispersed. Jake turned to Tseyo and put his hands on his shoulders. "We'll get justice for your sister," he said. "I promise."

* * *

It was late in the day when Kim poked her head into his office. "Got a few minutes, Boss?" Abe nodded, and she took a seat in front of his desk. "Scott and I have come to a pretty good point in our analysis of the pandorium deposits, but we're having a problem with the numbers."

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I always hated math," he said with a grin. "Try and keep it simple for me."

She let out a short laugh and said, "All right. At maximum efficiency, we had seventy-five trucks each hauling five loads of pandorium from the excavation site, for three-hundred seventy-five loads per day. Right?"

"Sounds right," he said with a nod. "Go on."

"Each truck has about six-hundred fifty cubic meters of cargo space."

"I can tell this is going to get difficult very fast."

Kim smiled and said, "How about I just get to the point, then."

"Please."

"We calculated how much crude pandorium has been excavated over the twenty-five years Hell's Gate was operational, and we compared that to the refinery's output. Those numbers didn't add up, but then our calculations about how much crude pandorium has been excavated could be hazy." He was getting ready to respond, but she held her hand up to stop him. She continued, "Then we looked at the shipping logs for how much pandorium was leaving from Hell's Gate, and compared those to the logs of how much was arriving back on Earth, and even they don't match."

Abe tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair while he thought about what she had told him. "How big were the differences? From excavation to arrival on Earth."

"Conservatively?" Abe nodded. "Somewhere there's a giant-ass mountain of pandorium just sitting around."

"That's impossible," he said flatly. "The cargo-carrying capability of the ISVs is well documented, and shipping is firmly monitored by the Interplanetary Commerce Administration. Intrasolar vehicles are grounded and searched if their import-export logs are off by a few tens of metric kilograms. But beyond that, a 'giant-ass mountain' of pandorium would be worth a giant-ass amount of money. RDA wouldn't just sit on that."

Kim nodded. "I know," she replied. "Believe me, I know. But we've run the numbers, and they're off by a lot. Scott should be sending you our work shortly."

A few moments later, his work tablet alerted him to Scott's message. He spent the next several minutes pouring over their calculations, and then he called in the only person who could account for Hell's Gate's operations.

"What do you need?" Parker asked upon entering Abe's office.

"I have a math question for you," he replied. "Kim, can you run through your presentation for Parker?"

She did, and at the end of it, Parker leaned back in his chair. He looked underwhelmed and replied, "Yeah. And?"

For the first time in a long time, perhaps since the beginning of his sordid career as a corporate fixer, Abe was floored. "You're literally unable to account for thousands of metric tons of the most valuable mineral known to mankind, and your response is, 'So what?'"

"I can account for it," Parker said casually. "It's all on Earth."

"Not according to the ICA logs."

Parker looked surprised. "Abe, are you retarded?" he asked with a short laugh. "Those logs are bullshit." Abe and Kim were too stunned for words, which appeared to humor Parker to no end. He laughed uproariously and said, "You didn't know? You, RDA's big, bad expert in cover-ups – Savage's own hitman – couldn't smell this one?"

"I'm not a hitman," Abe said calmly, "but if you don't bring me in on the joke, I may consider murder for pleasure."

Parker grinned and patted the gun holstered on his waist. "I don't think so. Thanks again for hooking us up with these."

"Do you want to fill us in anyway?" Kim asked.

Abe had a sudden, sickening moment of clarity. "He doesn't need to," he responded. "A few years ago, I was tasked with neutralizing a former administrator here who was going to go public with claims that RDA was engaged in pandorium price fixing. We were able to tie him to some extremist environmental groups, and we were preparing to discredit his source material – but he disappeared." Abe shook his head and added, "We based the investigation on the assumption that the extremists were providing him with forged documents, not that he was providing them with legitimate ones."

"Hold on," Parker said. "You mean you're really out of the loop on this?"

"Plausible deniability," Abe said. "Why would you tell your chief investigator about the scam you're running?"

"So what are you going to do?" Kim asked. "I mean, this is the biggest scam since Big Oil cooked research on peak oil."

Abe shrugged and replied, "Keep it quiet, I guess."

"What?!"

"I'm not a hero, Kim," he replied. "I'm not looking to be a martyr for some cause."

Kim was still incredulous. "You're talking about the foundation of Earth's economy and the future of humanity, Abe. You're just going to let RDA run roughshod over it?"

"It's not just RDA. Isn't that right, Parker?"

Parker nodded. "Why do you think ICA gave us a monopoly on Pandora? They're in on the take."

"And if they're in on it, then so is the G-20," Abe said. "That's twenty, very powerful governments with a stake in the inflated price of pandorium." He sighed and continued, "All the conspiracy theorists thought that RDA made the whistleblower disappear. We figured the extremists helped him go underground. But Savage probably handed off my investigation findings over to the governments – and once they saw the extent of what he knew, they had him taken care of."

"So what are you going to do, Kim?" Parker asked.

She looked torn, and Abe surprised himself by feeling sorry for her. He had to train himself over the course of his career to make cold calculations. She did not have that luxury.

"I, um—." She sighed. "Yeah, I don't want the CIA or whoever making me disappear in the middle of the night." She stood up. "I'll tell Scott that our numbers were off, then we'll destroy the documentation."

Parker grinned and said, "That's the smartest decision that's been made since we got here."

* * *

Eight days. Devon had been on the move for eight, agonizing days in his trek to Hell's Gate.

He had lost count of the number of times that he came close to death in the course of his journey. He far more experienced with Pandora's jungle than he was when he first landed, but that did not mean the jungle had become any less dangerous.

Devon had constantly been on the lookout for predators, and he found himself moving at night more than during the day. He was briefly helped when he managed to commandeer a wandering direhorse, but he was unable to secure it for the night, and it had disappeared when he woke up the next day.

Most of the time, however, he was not sure that he was heading in the right direction.

He remembered clearly approaching Hell's Gate from the Hallelujah Mountains on Kuraku in the futile attempt to save Uneyil's life, but there were few landmarks to spot on the way from Hell's Gate back to the Omaticaya. He only knew the general direction. And so his trek was further slowed as he had to climb tree after tree in order to get his bearings. Now, as the daylight faded, he could make out the old refinery towers of Hell's Gate.

Devon took a moment to wonder how Kuraku was handling his absence. Did the Omaticaya have to put him down since he would never bond with another Na'vi? Would they take care of him? Would they leave him to fend for himself?

He activated his microphone. "Is anybody listening?" For all he knew, Abe had completely severed the communications link. However, he was encouraged by the dull noise that persisted in his ears. He asked again a few minutes later, "Base, is anybody there?"

"If you're not calling from outside the gates, I don't want to hear from you," Abe replied.

"I'm about an hour away," he replied.

There was a pause. "Are you really?"

"I can see the refinery towers," he replied. "So yes, I guess about one hour."

Abe paused again. "The fences are down around the refinery. You can meet me there."

About two hours later, Devon passed through a broken section of fence and approached the refinery's dilapidated administration building. Abe stood there waiting with a hand uncomfortably close to a holstered gun. "I don't know if I should congratulate you for surviving or shoot you – for obvious reasons," he said.

"I know I screwed up," he offered. "I didn't mean for this to happen."

"That doesn't matter much now, does it?" Abe dropped his hand from the holster and sighed. "This really screws us. We have no way of knowing if any of our efforts to placate Jake and his clan are working – or what their soft spots are when the shit hits the fans."

Devon let out a short laugh and said, "Believe me, it's definitely going to hit the fans. They've made up their minds that there's going to be a war, they just expect you to make the first move."

"Maybe if we don't give them that satisfaction, then we'll end up okay."

"So, what about me?" Devon asked. "Are you going to shuttle me out of here, or am I stuck?"

"I should leave you here," Abe replied, crossing his arms. "I'm not a murderer, and I don't want to support murderers. I also don't support people who blatantly disobey my orders."

"Boss, if I had known what mating in this body involved—," he let his voice trail off and he sighed. "I'm not a murderer, either – or at least I wasn't. I didn't want to kill Mehi'a, but I care more about the people back on Earth than the people here. If keeping my secret meant her life, then that's what I had to do."

Abe looked like he was about to respond, but a familiar voice interrupted their conversation. "The only problem, 'Mu'kuti', is that taking her life didn't keep your secret," Jake said. Devon turned around as Jake stepped out from the shadows. "You are just like I was – absolutely no idea how things work here. This planet has more secrets than you could discover in a lifetime. But the people have a deeper connection with this world than you or I will ever be able to appreciate."

Other Na'vi began to appear from hidden nooks from about the base. Devon figured that they had taken great care to study it for ambush points in the years that RDA was gone. He had to hand it to Jake – his preparations for war were thorough.

Devon held a hand out and said, "Jake, listen…"

"No," he interrupted. "_Spe'e ayngal poéti_!" The Na'vi shouted excitedly. Before he could react to the command, one of the warriors threw bolas around his legs. Two warriors lunged forward and threw him to the ground and began to bind him.

"Jake, wait!" Abe urged.

"_Spe'e ayngal poéti nìteng_," Jake replied.

In between kicks of dirt in his face, Devon saw Abe reach for his gun as the Na'vi turned their attention to him; but he was interrupted when a pair of bolas struck him. The force of the strike would have been enough to knock him down, but he doubled over and fell face first when one of the heavy stones swung around and hit him in his chest. Devon thought he heard a cracking sound, and by the way Abe writhed on the ground, he figured a number of Abe's ribs were broken.

As Abe was being bound in the same manner as Devon, Jake brought Devon to his feet and held a knife to his throat. "Allow me the pleasure of delinking you," he said with a grin. "But we'll see each other again in a moment."

Before Jake stuck the knife in him, Devon said, "I'm not linked up!"

"What?"

"I'm not linked," he said again. "They transferred my consciousness into this body before we came down."

Jake hesitated, and then he looked behind Devon. "Is that true, Abe?"

Taking deep breaths and speaking through what had to be enormous pain, Abe replied, "It's true. He's not an avatar. Jake…"

"Call for the rest of your team to get out here," Jake ordered.

In an improbable act of defiance, Abe replied, "No."

It was the wrong answer. Jake walked towards Abe and, to Devon's horror, promptly removed his exopack mask. The other Na'vi seemed to get a kick out of watching Abe struggle as his lungs refused to take in the toxic atmosphere. His eyes watered and his nose began to run. Devon remembered the tear gas training he had undergone several times in the course of his army training, but he imagined the burning that Abe was experiencing was orders of magnitude worse. Before Abe passed out, Jake put his mask back on and again ordered him to make the call. "You're finished, Abe. Get your people out here."

"You know if anything happens to me, it's going to mean war," Abe said as he got his breath back.

Jake chuckled and replied, "You know what? I think I've stopped worrying about that." He looked at Devon and, in his adopted native language, said, "The people demand justice. If that means war, then we'll be ready to fight."

Devon knew Abe could not speak a word of Na'vi, but he seemed to understand the point regardless. "My people haven't committed any crimes," he said. "I'm not going to submit them to a kangaroo court or an angry mob."

"That's not up to you, Abe."

"Jesus Christ, Jake, could you stop swinging your dick around for a second and remember where you came from?" Abe angrily pleaded. "They came here to build a better world for humanity. They shouldn't be punished for that."

Devon spoke up. "Jake, I know what I did, and I'm ready to own up to it." He spoke in Na'vi in the long hopes of persuading the other warriors. "Mehi'a wouldn't consider it justice to kill innocent people in her name."

His plea fell flat, if not incite them further. They heaped curses on him, and the warrior holding him punched him below his ribs and said, "You don't have the right to speak about justice, demon."

Jake, for his part, held to his line. "The people will decide," he said. "Take these two away," he ordered. "The rest of you, come with me. If _T'ngyute_ won't summon his team, we'll go get them."

* * *

Norm was getting ready to call it a night when he heard the shouting outside. He walked down the corridor to a window, and outside he saw Jake with an armed warparty. The other Na'vi were whooping and hollering, holding guns over their heads; but Jake stood silent and resolute with his arms crossed.

He made his way down to the airlock and, reluctantly, donned an exopack and prepared to go outside. At that moment, Max and a few others joined him. "Do you know what's going on?" Max asked.

He shook his head. "No, but I think we'd better find out." Norm took a deep breath to make sure his mask was working, and then he stepped outside. "Jake, what's with the show of force?"

Norm stopped in his tracks when some of the warriors leveled their guns at him, but Jake ordered them to lower their weapons. "We want RDA's people," he said. "We're done with the games."

"I don't think they're just going to walk out here," Norm said as Max and Laura joined him. "What's happened, Jake?"

"Did you know Abe was running an avatar inside the clan?"

He was shocked. "How? The links have been deactivated for eleven years."

"Something about a consciousness transfer—." His voice trailed off and he shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "The avatar killed one of my people, and I'm not taking chances with any more tricks."

"Then you ought to take Norm, too," Laura said. "He's playing for their team."

"That's a fucking lie!" Norm shouted.

"Bullshit," she responded. "You told us that you've been feeding them information – which they probably sent on to this avatar."

"I wasn't working for them, I was trying to get them to understand Pandora."

Laura shrugged. "Whatever his excuse is, we don't want him here anymore. Feel free to take him."

Jake looked stunned, but he took a deep breath and replied, "No. Whatever Norm did, I know he didn't do it to hurt us." He sighed and said, "I wish you would have told me, though."

"Yeah, well, the people here didn't seem to want to understand," he said with a nod towards Laura. "I didn't think you'd be much better." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, Jake."

"What's done is done – and whatever they planned to do with the information you gave them is also done. Bring them out."

"Jake…" Norm began before Laura interrupted him.

"Gladly," she said.

"Wait!" To Norm's surprise, she did. "Jake, what are you going to do with them?"

"I'm taking them out of the equation," he replied. "If RDA wants to come back, they're not going to have their help doing it."

For the second time, Norm was shocked. "You're just going to kill them?"

"The people are going to decide."

"And what do you think they're going to decide, Jake?" Norm asked.

Jake sighed and knelt down, coming to eye level with him. "Norm, it's either them, or all of you." He paused as Norm considered that, and then he added, "That's not my call."

"What about the avatar?" he asked. "Did he get away?"

"We found him a minute ago, here, talking to Abe."

"So punish him," he said. "We'll lock up the others until RDA arrives, then you can come in and take them out – and we'll ship Abe's people back to Earth."

Jake shook his head. "Not this time," he said. "The people want to know that the Sky People aren't going to be given a free pass anymore." He raised an eyebrow and asked, "Are you sure you know whose side you're on?"

Norm let out a curt laugh and replied, "You're one to talk."

Jake frowned and stood. He looked at Laura and said, "Go get them."

"Wait," Norm said one more time. "Let me find—," his voice trailed as he hesitated. "I'll go, too."

As Laura and Max enthusiastically rounded up the other avatar team members, Norm sought out Amy. He found her as she was on her way to his suite. She turned to face him, and her smile quickly faded as she gauged his expression. "Norm, what's wrong?"

He did not hesitate to ask, "Did you know Abe had an avatar in Jake's clan?"

Amy's eyes widened for a brief moment, and then she took a deep breath and looked down. "Yeah, I knew."

His heart broke.

Shouts from the lower halls began to come up through the vents as the avatar team rounded up Amy's colleagues. He looked her in the eye and, steeling himself, said, "Jake would like to have a word with you outside, Colonel."


	19. Desperation

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

It was an historic moment. For the first time in the history of Pandora, humans, in their own form, were brought inside Hometree. Under other circumstances, it might have been cause for celebration. However, Abe Scheller and his cohorts were not distinguished guests of the Omaticaya. They were condemned prisoners.

They were forbidden from Hometree's floor, lest their presence pollute the ceremonial and sacred ground. And so they had been led to the highest branches inside Hometree's winding trunk.

It had been a spectacle when they arrived at Hometree. The whole tribe, young and old, had come out to throw curses on them. They reserved a large portion of their anger for Devon, who was pelted with rotten fruit and small rocks; and more than once a person had broken past the armed escorts and managed to land a punch or kick before being tossed back into the crowd.

The humans had made for easier targets. The children, who were closer to their size than the other Na'vi, were able to duck under the guards and either push the humans to the ground or hit them on the back of their heads, at times with their parents' encouragement. Some of the children pulled at the humans' exopack masks, but none of them succeeded in removing them before they were swatted away by the guards.

The only exception to this treatment was Abe. When it became apparent that his injuries would not allow him to make the climb up Hometree's branches, the warrior carrying him on the banshee's back landed in the tree's crown. Where his comrades were being accosted by the Na'vi, Abe suffered the hisses and cries of the banshees nesting in Hometree's canopy as they looked at him with hungry eyes.

Devon was tied, his arms above his head, to the prisoners' branch on his back and at his wrists, elbows, neck, waist, knees, and ankles. Matthew, after much negotiation with their captors, was only bound by one ankle and given a long rope so he could move about the prisoners and tend to their care. The rest of the humans had their feet bound to one of the upper branches, while their hands were bound in a series to the other prisoners'.

Matthew knelt beside Abe as he examined his chest. "I don't think you have any displaced fractures," he said. "But I'd say your eleventh, ninth, and sixth ribs are cracked."

"Would it be too much to ask if you had anything for that?" Abe asked between labored breaths.

"I could ask them," Matthew replied, "but I think they'd just as likely give you poison than pain killer."

Abe nodded. "I don't think it matters, anyway," he said. "I doubt I'll be in pain for too much longer."

Matthew brushed aside the side the suggestion and continued, "Just keep taking deep breaths as often as you can, Boss. It'll hurt like hell, but you can't let your lungs get weak – especially not with the atmospheric pressure out here."

"Thank you, Doctor." Matthew nodded and took a seat farther down the branch.

The prisoners were silent for a long time after that, and it was Abe who broke the silence. "Devon, since I guess we have you to thank for this, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, Boss. I'm not going anywhere."

"Were you in love with her, or did you just screw up your cover?"

Devon hesitated to answer. "Does it really matter?"

"Humor me."

He was quiet for a while, and then he sighed and said, "Maybe."

"'Maybe,' what?"

"Maybe I was in love with her." He let out a heavy sigh. "If she were a human back on Earth, I'd probably have thought about a relationship with her." He let out a short laugh and added, "I might have at least taken her out for a drink."

Abe just shook his head. "Was it too much to ask for you to show some restraint?"

"No," he replied. "I always kept the mission as the first priority. I let myself think she would help accomplish that."

"Do you have anything to say on that point, Dawn?"

She lowered her head and replied, "No, Boss."

"Really?" Abe asked. "It was your suggestion, after all."

Dawn shot him a piercing glare. "And in hindsight, I can see how it was a pretty bad suggestion, okay? I get it, this is bad." She sighed and tilted her head back. "I am tied up with the rest of you, after all."

"We didn't do anything wrong," Scott said angrily. "Why are we on the chopping block?"

"I told you that you should have just rounded up Norm and the others," Parker said. "We wouldn't be here if you had taken care of them in the beginning."

"You're right, we wouldn't be here," Abe said. "We'd all have been killed when Jake stormed the base to rescue the renegades – or maybe take revenge for their deaths, if you would have preferred it."

"Because God forbid that we put ourselves in a position to be killed or anything." Parker snorted and said, "What a difference seven months makes, right?"

"We had to have a chance," Abe replied. "Besides, it wasn't even the renegades who brought us to where we are."

"Again, 'I'm sorry,'" Devon said. Nobody jumped on the opportunity to accept his apology, and silence fell over the prisoners again.

Night fell, and the light from the fires on Hometree's floor managed its way up to their branch. The sounds of the clan celebrating below also made their way to the prisoners, prompting Amy to ask, "What about you, Parker? Now that you've gotten to see their tribe up close, is there anything you would have done differently in handling them?"

Parker pursed his lips and shook his head, like a child refusing to take medicine. "They moved, didn't they? It would have been better for all of us if they had just done it in the first place."

"Somehow I don't think they'd agree," she replied.

"Let's go ask your boyfriend," Parker said. "Oh, wait a minute, he sold you out."

"Hey, fuck you!" Amy responded at the same time the other prisoners aired their generally negative opinions of Parker's cheap shot. Their yelling back and forth prompted one of the Na'vi guards to hiss at them and, although only a handful of them could understand her subsequent words, they got the message to keep quiet.

Not content to be shouted down, however, Parker interrupted the silence by saying, "I'm not wrong, though."

The guard grabbed a handful of wet, decomposing wood and threw it at him.

* * *

"You all know this is bullshit," Norm said to the others as they sat down for breakfast. "Why are you going along with it?"

"Because it's not our place," Laura said. "The Na'vi don't have a legal system of complicated codes and procedures. Hell, they don't even have a word for 'murder' – or at least not that we've ever heard. They want justice, and they're going to get it." She chuckled and added, "And if it gets those pricks out of our hair at the same time, all the better."

"Maybe the Na'vi take a black-and-white view to justice, but we don't," Norm said. "Just because you don't like what Abe and his team set out to do doesn't mean that they ought to be punished for someone else's crime." He looked at Max and said, "Doctor Cook was trying to kick-start Grace's field studies. Does he deserve to die for that? Dawn and Jose were, what, translators? What sacred law of Pandora did they violate? Kim and Scott…"

"We get it!" Max interrupted. "Maybe they didn't all grab guns and head out Na'vi hunting, but the fact is that they're on the wrong side of this fight." He shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, Norm, but you've known for ten years, like the rest of us, that we and Jake and RDA weren't all going to hold hands, kiss and make up when they came back."

"That doesn't mean we should just abandon who we are and what we believe because it's expedient," he replied. "I mean, you guys fought back against RDA because you saw what they were doing was wrong. Now what Jake's doing is wrong. Why is that any different?"

"Because it is!" Laura snapped back. "Because it's not us on the chopping block this time. If you want to call me a hypocrite about it, fine. I'm a hypocrite. I don't care."

"So that's the lesson you want to hand down to the kids here? If it doesn't hurt me, fuck it?" Norm paused while he tried to get his head around that argument. "The whole reason why we're here is because our home planet is dying because too many people said, 'It's not hurting me, so fuck it.' Hey, here's a question for you all: Just how long do you think the Na'vi are going to let us live here if all we do is carry on with Earth's hypocrisies?"

The avatar drivers were quiet for a while and exchanged glances. Eventually Luke said, "If the Na'vi ever want to throw us out, then that's their right. It's their home."

Norm laughed. "Oh, so you think they're going to build us our own spaceship and send us on our way?" he asked. "They're going to do to us what they're doing to Abe and his team right now."

Laura stood and said, "Norm, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that, while we've all appreciated your little speech on justice, we're doing fine without your opinions. If you want to go out there and save your girlfriend, then by all means, take a ship and go do it. But don't ask us to help you."

Norm snorted and said, "I'm trying to get you to help yourself, Laura. All of you. We aren't making anything better by pretending this is okay."

"Thank you for trying," she said. "Now, my offal's getting cold. Do you have anything else?"

Norm sighed and lowered his head. "I guess not."

She sat down and said, "Go save your girlfriend, then. I'd wish you good luck, but that would be hypocritical of me."

"I'd say, 'I'll be right back,' but that would require a lot of assumptions on my part."

Norm headed back to his suite, where he had packed a duffel bag with an assortment of survival gear; not that he expected to last very long. From there, he donned an exopack and headed to the long ago depressurized hangar, where only a skeleton of RDA's former air arsenal remained. Norm had no idea how much progress Abe's mechanic had made in restoring the aircraft, but he knew one for certain that worked.

He approached Abe's retrofitted Samson and dropped his duffel in the passenger seat. As he settled into the pilot's seat, Max and Luke entered the hangar and ran towards him.

"Norm, what the hell are you doing?" Max asked. "Have you gone completely off the deep end?"

"I can't just sit here, Max. I can't call myself Jake's friend and not try to keep him from making this mistake."

"And Amy has nothing to do with this?"

Norm hesitated. He was more than heartbroken that she had kept Abe's secret from him, after all the access that he had given her and the trust that he thought had developed between them. But as was the case after each one of their fights, he could not bring himself to hold a lasting grudge. Faced with the possibility of losing her forever, he said, "Of course she does." He shook his head and added, "But that doesn't mean I was making excuses on her behalf."

Max nodded slowly, and then he took a deep breath and asked, "Do you even know how to fly?"

He laughed nervously and said, "I've played around with the simulator a little bit."

Luke chuckled, shook his head and said, "Yeah, well, in a past life I played around with one of these a little bit, so scoot over before you break it."

Norm raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"It's not that we don't think they deserve mercy," Luke said. "But maybe they can still be more useful to us alive than dead."

Norm sighed and said, "I'll take it." He moved over to the passenger seat while Luke took the pilot's seat. "Max, are you coming?"

He shook his head. "I'm not exactly the kind of guy who rides out on a white horse to save damsels in distress," he said. "But good luck." He held up a hand before Norm could ask and said, "I mean it."

* * *

"Hurry up!" the guard ordered, pushing his shoulder to urge him forward.

Devon was at the lead of the prisoners as they made their way down Hometree's branches. As his legs were bound to the others, he was trying to step carefully in order to cause all of them to fall to their premature deaths. He would not want to do anything to ruin the execution proceedings.

He did not say this to the guard, however, as he did not want to run the risk of giving him any ideas.

They made it to the floor, where the tribe had assembled. As when they arrived, the people wasted no time in harassing the prisoners while they walked from the altar at Hometree's center to the posts that had been erected outside.

Although there were ten prisoners, only three posts had been erected. Devon assumed that had less to do with available resources and more to do with their desire to draw out the executions.

A platform had been hastily erected in front of the posts, on which Jake and Neytiri stood. Both of them wore elaborate, ceremonial attire, and had their bodies painted as though they were about to ride into battle. The prisoners were positioned in front of the platform, facing out towards the tribe. Once they were positioned, Jake ordered Devon, Abe, and Parker to be brought up to be bound to the posts.

Devon only resisted insofar as the guards very roughly released him from his first set of binds. He took his time, however, stepping up the gangway to his post. He was able to look Jake squarely in the eye as he was tied to the post; and Jake returned the stare with unmasked contempt. But when he tried to look at Neytiri, who was no less disapproving of him, he could not bring himself to it.

Abe remained stoic as he was tied up, wincing only when the bonds were tightened around his chest.

Parker, on the other hand, got the wind knocked out of him by a guard because he fought with almost every step he took; and much to the approval of the tribe. Rather than walk up the gangway, he was carried, and then unceremoniously dropped in front of his post, to which he was hurriedly tied.

Jake dismissed the guards from the platform and held his hands up to address the clan. "The Sky People returned with false promises of peace. They promised that they would learn from the mistakes of the past." He paused and added, "They thought we would believe them."

The people laughed and jeered the prisoners.

Neytiri unsheathed a knife from her belt that, were it wielded by a human, would qualify as a large sword. Unlike the crude, single-edged knives common among the people, a great deal of attention had been paid to crafting this double-edged blade. She handed it to Jake, who swung it around to point at Devon's neck. "The Sky People sent him to earn our trust under their false banner of peace, and to learn our weaknesses."

Jake took a deep breath and said, "He did earn the trust of many of you." The people shouted and heaped curses on him. Devon looked out among the crowd and tried to pick out faces of people with whom he had developed friendship. Their faces were contorted with anger. He looked away from them.

"One of the people paid for her trust with her life." Jake turned to him and said. "At the very least, you owe the people your real name, 'Mu'kuti.'"

He took a deep breath and shouted in English, "Devon Angler, Master Sergeant, United States Army, One Three Eight One Two One Niner Four Seven!"

Jake chuckled and, replying in English said, "Very cute, Sergeant, but Geneva's a long way from here."

"So what, Corporal? You and I took the same oath to protect certain values. Those don't go away when you take the uniform off or fly to another world."

"Murder wasn't an Army value the last time I checked."

"I'm talking about leaving your soldiers behind," he said. He spoke to him sternly, trying to instill some discipline in the wayward soldier. "Earth is in a fight, and you decided that it was too goddamned tough – so you bugged out. You know more than I do that the Corps is more than storming beaches and kicking ass, it's about values." He took a deep breath and added, "You're not a savior of these people. You're not even a leader. You're a disgrace to every Marine who's come before you, and who died for you to make it out of that jungle on Earth to even be here and play general."

With the exception of Neytiri, he did not expect any of the Na'vi to understand what he just said. Jake, however, clearly understood, and he punched Devon squarely in his nose. The people cheered.

Devon laughed and spat blood on the platform. He continued, "I probably had one-hundred soldiers like you under my command at some point or another. They were big, bad _corporals_ who knew that if they just had stars on their shoulders that they could put everything to rights. But as soon as I put their fireteam up front, gave them a little taste of the way the world really works, they wanted to piss their pants like everyone else. And if they got hit, they'd cry out for anybody they could think of to save their lives.

"And you know what? Despite their shit for brains attitude, I'd haul ass over there and get them stable – because that's what you do for the guy on your side. So, who'd you cry out for in that jungle, Corporal? Who's going to be there to help out all the people on our side back home who are crying out for help?"

Jake was steaming. Devon expected to get punched again, but after a drawn out moment of silence, Jake asked, "Anything else, Sergeant?"

"No," he said without hesitation. "I won't beg to a subordinate."

Jake nodded and called out, "_Tseyo te Kllkx Muitan_!"

The tribe cheered as Tseyo walked up the gangway and onto the platform. He, like Jake and Neytiri, was dressed and painted as though he were ready for war. Jake gave him the knife and stepped away. Tseyo looked Devon in the eye and said, "She loved you."

"I didn't want to hurt her, Tseyo," he replied.

Tseyo nodded and said, "Then tell me if this hurts." He plunged the knife in the same manner and place as Devon had stabbed Mehi'a. The longer knife, however, did far more damage than his strike could have. In between flashes of pain, it occurred to him that he should not have expected Jake to be so humane as to coat the blade with a toxin to speed his death.

The people cheered when Tseyo held up the bloodied knife for them to see, and that they could also see the blood pouring from his body. After a few moments of display, Tseyo turned to him again and said, "She suffered, _Dev'angler_, just like you are suffering now."

He could taste blood in his mouth as he spoke and struggled against the pain. "I tried to make it quick for her, Tseyo. Give me that."

"Yes, you did try. But your cut was too weak." Tseyo forcefully grabbed Devon's jaw, lifting his head to expose his neck. "Let me show you how to do it right."

Devon felt the knife cut across his neck. When Tseyo released his grip, his head fell forward, the muscle support beneath it gone.

The world around him became muted and colorless. He blinked and, when his eyes opened again, he saw that he was back in the desert.

He figured that he must have blacked out from the physical toll that his trek back to friendly lines had inflicted. His legs were already weak from the shrapnel wounds he had sustained, and those wounds were being aggravated as his body was weighed down by the dying soldier he carried on his back.

Despite the pain, he carried on through the seemingly endless sand. "We're going to make it, Will," he said to his comrade. "Just hold on a little longer."

* * *

When Tseyo drew the blade across Devon's neck, he did so with enough force to cause blood to carry over and splatter onto his mask. Through the blood, Abe watched as Devon's legs gave out, his body slumped forward, and he tried to speak his last words. However, with his windpipe severed and blood pouring forth, whatever he tried to say came out as gargled and choked.

His eyes stayed open after he finally and quickly died.

The Na'vi cheered throughout the whole, horrible display. Abe was overcome with terror. These were the people his daughter had idolized? If he had known better, he would have done everything in his power to shield her from them.

If he had known better, he would have planned to send thousands of mercenaries out to exterminate them.

Tseyo returned the sword to Jake and then exited the platform, crossing in front of him. He looked into Abe's eyes as he walked past and, with a grin, drew a finger across his neck. Guards stepped up to the podium and checked over Devon's body. Satisfied that he was dead, they cut his binds loose and carried him away. Abe doubted that he was going to receive a dignified burial.

Jake wiped the blade clean and addressed the crowd in their native tongue. He could not understand a word he was saying, Abe figured Jake was setting him up as the criminal leader of humanity's return to their world. In the meantime, Amy was brought up to the platform and tied to the bloodied post.

He looked over to Parker. His eyes were wide, and he was breathing quickly and deeply. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were bone white. He was either panicking or succumbing to a fierce anger.

He looked over to Amy. She was not as physically over come as Parker, but she was not a pillar of stoicism. She was shaking, and her eyes were closed tightly. He could not tell between the blood on his mask and the light reflecting from hers if she was crying.

Abe decided that this show had gone on long enough.

It took him a few moments to find his voice through the fear that had consumed his mind, but he interrupted Jake's speech and shouted, "Jake, if you're going to execute us, we have a right to know why!"

Jake turned to him and said, "The people, and this planet, have suffered enough at your company's hands. We're not going to suffer the same thing again."

"That's our high crime? Strip mining?" He let out a harsh laugh. "Devon murdered someone. That's a crime. Like her father just now…"

Neytiri interrupted him. "That was her brother. Mehi'a's father was killed when the Sky People attacked our home," she said.

Abe sighed and continued, "The point is that if something happened to my little girl, and I caught the man who did it, I'd gladly cut his head off." He had to stop and take a breath before adding, "I still wish I could get my hands around the neck of the guy who killed my sister. But Jake, those were _actual_ crimes that those people committed. Punishing us for something that other people did a decade ago isn't right."

Jake pointed his knife at Parker. "So I should punish him? I could easily list his crimes."

"I never ordered Quaritch to kill anybody!" Parker protested. "You were in the room, Sully. _You_ were the one who told me I didn't want their blood on my hands – and I didn't. I gave you a chance to get everybody out, and they didn't leave. That's not my fault!" Parker turned to the crowd and shouted, "Do you savages understand me? It wasn't my fault!"

Neytiri did understand him, and she was having none of it. She grabbed the knife from Jake's hands and held it to Parker's neck. "Your warriors killed my sister, and your _kunsìps_ killed my father. That is your fault!"

"Quaritch let his guys run wild," Parker said. "You want to call me a coward for not standing up to him? Fine. But I tried to be a friend to your people, and you threw it back in my face."

"You wanted to take from us," she replied. "That is not friendship."

"And I've tried to give back to you, Neytiri," Abe said, "and you still won't listen."

"You just want the same thing he wants. Your words may be kinder, but your spirit is the same."

"Okay, Neytiri, you're right," Abe said. "I don't want to live on a dying planet anymore, and if that means having to take from your world to save mine, then I'll do it. But I think it would be better for you, your people, and my people, if you worked with us and not against us. How many more people are going to die before you learn that?"

She turned the blade on him. "You have nothing we want," she said. "You have nothing to give us that is worth more than our home."

"I agree that nothing is worth more than home, which is why I want to save mine." He grinned and looked at her stomach, which was plainly showing her pregnancy. "But who are you to say we can't give you something you want?"

"Abe…," Jake began to say, although Abe doubted he was going to offer more than a casual warning. What was he going to do – kill him if he told?

"What are you talking about?" Neytiri asked, interrupting Jake.

Abe's grin became wicked. "Ask Jake." She looked at Jake, but he remained silent. Abe continued, "Do you think it was a coincidence that you couldn't get pregnant until we showed up? I've already given you something you wanted, Neytiri. I've given you your child."

She hissed and screamed, "You lie!"

She pulled the knife back and prepared to plunge it into his chest when Jake said, "He's not lying, Neytiri." Neytiri, her face still flush with anger, looked at him, and he sighed. "Abe's telling the truth," he said. "I needed his help in order for us to have a child."

Neytiri's anger faded and was replaced with an expression of disbelief. Her eyes darted around, as though she were hoping words would appear before her, but she did not say anything.

She might still have stabbed him, if not for the surprise appearance of the Samson overhead.

The crowd, which had stood in silent confusion during the last couple of minutes, began to panic. A rope dropped from the craft onto the platform, and not a moment later Abe saw Norm rappel down. Norm gave the pilot a thumbs-up once he was on his feet, and the craft sped away – and a few arrows followed it.

Abe turned to Norm said the first thing that came to mind once the Samson had departed. "You are certifiably, fucking insane."

Norm ignored him and said, "Jake, you have to stop this."

"Norm, you don't know what you're doing," he replied.

"No, Jake, _you_ don't know what you're doing. You're pretending to be something you're not, and it's gone way too far."

"I'm trying to protect my people from them," he said. "Or have you forgotten what they came here to do?"

"They're not you're people, Jake!" Norm shouted. "Yes, they've accepted you into their clan and anointed you as their leader, but you're not a Na'vi, Jake. Their ancestors are not your ancestors. You have to learn what they know by instinct. You aren't one of them, and you never will be." Before Jake could respond, he added, "That's what Grace had been trying to tell you."

Jake hesitated before he replied, "What about you, Norm? You made your life trying to be one of the people."

He shook his head and said, "No, that's not what I wanted. I wanted to be accepted by the Na'vi and learn from them, but I always wanted to go home. I wanted to take what they had to teach and build a better world for humanity." He turned to Amy and said, "I wanted to create something that we can have a future in." He looked back at Jake and continued, "They want the same thing, they just don't know how to make it happen without trying to steal it."

"And you're just going to forgive them for everything that's happened?"

"No, not by a long shot. But what you're doing isn't going to make it right, either."

Jake sighed and asked, "Do you think that if RDA is allowed to resume operations here that they're going to respect the land, Eywa, and the people?"

"No," he replied. "But killing Abe won't make them go away, either."

He crossed his arms and asked more pointedly, "So what's your plan?"

"I don't know," he said exasperated. "Just – I just know that this isn't a plan."

Jake looked at Abe and asked, "If I let you go, what will you do?"

"I can keep SecOps inside the fence until the miners come on the second ship," he said. "After that? I won't lie, Jake – I don't know."

Jake looked at Neytiri. She shook her head and said, "If you let them go, they will only come back stronger."

"We'll keep them locked up, Neytiri," Norm said. "They won't have a chance to come back."

Neytiri sighed and handed Jake the knife. He hesitated to take it, but then he turned to address the people. Once again, Abe was lost in the language, but Norm translated for him. "He's saying that I, as leader of the Sky People and friend of the tribe, have apologized for your crimes. And apparently I've promised that you will help us defeat the mercs when they come."

Abe snorted and said, "That's imaginative. Will they buy it?"

"They know I'm responsible for giving them their weapons," he replied with a shrug, "so maybe. I don't think they'll be very happy, though. They really wanted to see you dead."

* * *

Norm spent the rest of the day shuttling Abe and his colleagues back to Hell's Gate for their long incarceration. The people were less than thrilled that they had been let go, but their anger was tempered by Devon's execution. His body had been discarded well into the jungle, so no wayward predator would seek more Na'vi flesh by stalking around Hometree's periphery.

His more immediate concern, however, was that among the people who were less than happy with him was Neytiri.

Neytiri had made every effort to avoid him after the execution ceremony, but as night fell, he found her in a clearing they frequented, on her knees and weeping. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she promptly smacked it away.

"Norm was right," she said. "You are not one of the people." She stood and faced him. "You still have the same, _skxawng_ mind as when you were one of the Sky People."

"Neytiri…"

"You learn, but you don't understand," she continued, cutting him off. "It is not enough to know what is important to the people. You have to understand why it is important."

"You said you didn't want the Sky People to be involved with our child," he said. "But they were the only way…"

She folded her ears back, hissed and smacked his forehead, the same thing she frequently did to him years ago – and sometimes more recently – when he failed to understand a lesson. "I remember what you said about your blood," she scolded him. "That was not important to me. I want you to be honest, Jake. I want you to stop trying to deceive me, to stop keeping me away."

"I'm trying to do what's right for you, and for the people," he said.

"Your heart is not the problem, Jake. It's your mind. Sky People think that one's energy comes from the mind, and you still think like they do. Your energy comes from your heart and feeds your body. Your mind cannot control it – you must trust it." She put her hands on his chest. "I am part of your heart, now, and you are part of mine. You have to trust me, and I have to trust you." She looked into his eyes and asked, "How can I trust you?"

He placed his hands over hers, holding them against his chest. "Neytiri, I never wanted to hurt you. I've tried to move beyond my past and embrace the ways of the people…"

"You cannot escape your past," she said. "You are who you are, Jake. How can you understand the people if you don't understand that about yourself?"

Jake looked down and said, "I don't want to lose you, and my past – I want you to see me for who I am, not who I was."

She stepped close to him and said, "Eywa saw your heart when you were still young in this body. I saw you for who you are when I held you in your old body. Why is that not enough for you?"

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I just know that I can't do this without you."

"Then let me be a part of you, Jake. You will never have to be afraid if you keep me with you." She offered him a smile and said, "I love you, Jake. You can make me angry, but I love you."

He kissed her forehead. "I love you, too. Tell me how I can regain your trust."

Her smile faded and she took a deep breath. "It will take time," she said plainly. "But I know you will earn it back. Before then, though, there is one thing you can do."

"Tell me."

"You have found Mu'kuti and exacted your justice. Find Khutxo and bring him home." She took a deep breath and said, "What he did was wrong, but he cares about the people – and he is my friend."

Jake nodded. "I will bring him home."

"Thank you," she said. Her smile returned briefly, but then faded again when she asked, "What will you do now that the Sky People have been let go?"

"They aren't free," he said. "_T'ngyute_ and his friends won't be able to hurt us."

"But his warriors are coming," she said. "He did not promise to help us fight them."

"He won't have to," Jake replied. "The _kunpongu_ are ready, and Norm will be helping us." He paused and added, "But even if they fail, _T'ngyute_ will, at the least, not fight against us."

She furrowed her brow and asked, "How do you know that?"

He shook his head and said, "I don't know it, but I feel it. Don't ask me how, but I feel it."

* * *

A/N – To be concluded…


	20. Surrender

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

* * *

Despite being a thinking man, it never occurred to Abe that being left alone with his thoughts would become the worst punishment he had ever known.

His entire adult life had been dedicated to deconstructing problems and building solutions for the highest bidder. He had even spent his childhood meticulously plotting how to outmaneuver his schoolyard rivals.

The one and only time he ever raised a fist against a bully, he ended up with a broken nose and his last two baby teeth knocked out. But as soon as he discovered, through patient observation, that his bully had password protected his schooltablet with the name of the class' hamster, he was able to learn about his antagonist's crush on their teacher. After extorting fifty dollars to remain quiet – a king's ransom for a seven-year-old – he revealed the forbidden love to the whole school.

Abe never had to worry about being beaten up again. He had learned that people could be just as afraid of those who knew too much as those who were too powerful. In the years that followed, he considered studying people his most important subject in school. His exams were in the subtle ways he would manipulate his peers to do his bidding. The trick, however, was making sure that his subjects never exchanged notes.

That's where he was stuck. _How the hell did they find out_?

He understood that it had something to do with how the Na'vi shared information through their queues. That was not at the heart of the question. How had he misread Devon? Was everyone who came in contact with the Na'vi susceptible to letting their guard down? From Abe's exposure to the Na'vi, he had nothing to feel enchanted by.

Abe had never felt comfortable with Parker's description of the Na'vi as savages, but that's exactly what he saw in the Omaticaya. They had a culture, and they were sapient, but there was no restraint. From what he understood of their beliefs, he knew that they considered themselves as a part of Pandora's nature – on the same footing as the other animals. Maybe that's where he made his mistake – in thinking of them like humans.

RDA's propaganda streamed back to Earth from Pandora had portrayed the Na'vi as one of the long-lost indigenous tribes of Earth. Their campaign's goal was to convince people that RDA was looking after the Na'vi; but instead, people, like Natalie, developed an attachment to them. In turn, RDA found itself bound to going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that they were respecting the Na'vi.

He and others assumed that Parker just got frustrated with the regulations and cracked under the pressure. However, Abe considered that, perhaps, Parker just saw what had to be done.

Maybe If RDA had portrayed the Na'vi as Abe had seen them – savages with a bloodlust – people back home would have given RDA free reign to do whatever was necessary to keep them at bay. As it was, the Na'vi and the renegades had the upper hand again.

Hell's Gate's holding cell was not designed to accommodate groups of prisoners. With so few people on the base at any given point of time, and most of them mentally sound for interstellar travel, the idea of having to contain scores of prisoners never occurred to the base's designers. The "jail" was more like a temporary detention facility for a few people at a time and for short periods, either until their time was served or a shuttle was in orbit to take them back to Earth.

However, Abe was learning that it served well as a long-term jail for one person.

While the rest of Abe's team was separated into separate bunks, Abe was left alone in the holding cell under constant guard. He was only let out to make his meetings with Chairman Savage, which were closely monitored by the renegades. They drew up false reports, and Abe was expected to brief from them word for word.

The renegades would not even leave him alone on the occasions that he was able to communicate with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately for the renegades, years of clandestine work allowed Abe and Krysta to build a very robust, coded lexicon. Despite their observations, he was able to tell her that his operation had failed and that he was being monitored. He had also told her not to inform Chairman Savage.

What he told Jake when he was tied to the post was true. The best that he could offer was to keep SecOps tied up for a month rebuilding the base, and then they were going to want to see action as soon as the miners and engineers showed up. Another reason not to tip off Savage: If word got back to SecOps that RDA was on the ropes for a second time, they would not wait to have their infrastructure built up. They would go on the offensive upon landing; and they would be slaughtered.

Despite his lack of respect for the Na'vi, he was finding a hard time justifying RDA's alternative solution, given the scam they were perpetrating on Earth. What would be the point in wiping out the Na'vi if humanity's survival _did not_ depend on it? Abe did not have any reservations when it came to revenge, but he could not bring himself to a bloodlust. And although he was willing earlier to be complicit in RDA's cover-up, that was when he believed he had the upper hand. What did he have, now?

He had time, and he had a mind that refused to turn off.

* * *

Parker was finding it hard to be grateful to still be alive. For the second time in his _illustrious_ career on Pandora, he was on the wrong end of a rebellion. For the second time – and, in all likelihood, the last time – he was a participant in the destruction of the greatest undertaking in all of human history.

For the second time, it was all because of some blue, monkey woman.

"What the hell was wrong with those people?" he wondered aloud.

"I think it had something to do with them being pissed off," Miguel offered in response.

Despite being in confinement with four other guys in a cramped bunk room designed to accommodate eight people, Parker found it too easy to forget that his fellow prisoners were around. He looked up from the floor and said, "Yeah, well, if we'd have done it my way, they wouldn't even be here to be pissed off."

"They were just doing what they thought was right," Jose replied. "They don't deserve to get their heads cut off for it – no more than we did."

"Well, what's right for them isn't what's right for the rest of us," Parker said, standing from the edge of his cot. "A lot more people are depending on this operation being successful than who want to see it fail."

"Maybe if it hadn't been a failure in the first place, then this wouldn't have been an issue," Matthew said.

"Hey, Doc, I'm not the guy who made it fail," Parker replied.

"Of course not. Why should we expect that the guy in charge would have anything to do with the outcome?" Matthew said with a snort. "That speaks volumes about your skill as an administrator, Parker."

"You know what? I'm not having this argument for the millionth time."

"It's not like we've failed again," Jose said. "The Boss is one of those guys who always has a backup plan to the backup plan to the backup plan. He might have even seen this coming."

Scott shook his head and said, "Abe definitely did not see Devon falling in love with the Na'vi. I can guarantee that."

"I can also guarantee that he's not planning on getting the rest of us out of here," Parker said.

"How do you figure?" Miguel asked.

"Abe – the once and never again 'Boss' – didn't get where he is by putting a whole lot of stock in other people," Parker replied. "Believe me, the man's a survivor. If anything, he's in that holding cell figuring out how to get his own ass out of the fire."

"No," Matthew said. "Abe may be a survivor, but he's also not the kind of guy to accept when the chips are down. The only way he gets his ass out of the fire is to salvage this clusterfuck."

"Yeah? Do you have any insights about how that's going to happen?"

"I'm not getting paid to make decisions," Matthew replied. "I'm getting paid to be a lab rat."

"Well, once upon a time I did get paid to make decisions, and let me tell you how this is all going to go down," Parker said. "Abe's going to get SecOps to surrender, or get them all killed, and then shuttle everyone back to Earth. He'll throw his hands up and say, 'Hey, nothing I could do. These guys just dropped the ball.' He'll get a pat on the back for trying, and then he'll go about his business while some other sucker makes another try at Pandora."

"And by 'these guys,' I assume you mean yourself." Matthew shook his head and said, "Something that half-assed could only come from you, Parker."

"Maybe the explanation sucks," Scott said, "but Parker's right. Abe's not going to just throw his hands up and tell Savage and the Board that this was his fault. He's going to pass the buck to save his own skin." He looked at Jose and said, "That's his backup plan."

"And you know this for a fact?" Matthew asked.

Scott shrugged. "Not specifically, but I know the type. I've seen more than a few officers who'd fumble their way into an ambush, only to blame the enemy when their platoons came back minus more than a few Marines."

Matthew sighed and said, "Look, Abe isn't going to survive if he burns the team. There are too many of us who could come right back and burn him. I guess you'd call it 'fragging.' But if you guys want to buy into Parker's own attempt to save his ass, I'm not going to stop you." He rolled over on his cot to face the wall. "Just leave me out of it."

Parker looked at Jose. "And you?"

Jose shook his head and said, "I'm not a backstabber, man. Not even when things have all gone to Hell."

"We'll see what you two say when your ass is on the line," Scott said. He then looked at Parker, "So, what's your plan?"

Parker looked over at Miguel before he responded. Miguel just gave him a nod. "Well, SecOps has to know that the guy they're expecting to lead them has gone over to the other side," Parker said. "I was hoping you'd have an idea of how we could do that."

Scott nodded and said, "Keep in mind that we're not actually in prison. These are supposed to be living quarters. Every room in the habmod has in-wall access points to the facility's central servers. If we could just get a tablet, it's no big deal to hack into the communications lines and send messages. I mean, we already did it when we got here."

"I'm sure our captors won't have any reservations about giving you a tablet," Matthew offered. "Why should they?"

"I don't know about you, Doc, but I'd like something to read while I sit here," Scott replied. "We don't need a worktablet, a recreational one for reading books would work. Every tablet has both a basic operating system and scripting program that, if you know how to use it, can be used to achieve all kinds of things. And since books have to be downloaded, we'll also have access to the central server."

"So that's it?" Parker asked. "You're just going to write a program to access the communications network from here?"

"Like I said, it's what we did the first time," Scott replied with a nod. "Except then we were working with substantially better hardware. We wouldn't be able to do more than send text up to the ship. And keep in mind that since the renegades figured out our ruse with the backup terminal, they're likely to be listening in on the same frequency. If we send a message at the same time that they're on the line, it's game over for us; but if we wait too long, SecOps may not get the message."

Parker thought it over, and then nodded and said, "It's a risk we're just going to have to take."

* * *

"Delivery," Norm said as he knocked on the door. Parker answered, and Norm handed him the recreational tablets for the prisoners. "I didn't figure you for a reader." Parker did not answer before he closed the door.

Norm shook his head and continued down the hall. It occurred to him to stop by Amy's holding room while he was on the hall, but their last few conversations had not gone well.

Amy insisted that the only reason she had kept Devon's infiltration a secret was because she was certain that Norm would have tipped off Jake. She was not wrong. However, she could not account for why she would rely on Devon's reports to form her opinions of the Na'vi at the same time she was supposed to be learning from him. It was clear to Norm that he had been taken for a ride, but she denied it.

For her part, Amy was still sore that he had turned her over to Jake and his posse. Norm was hard pressed to be angry about her over that, but his hands had been tied. If he had left it to the others to haul her out, he had no idea how that would shake out.

But he had saved her from execution. Why didn't that account for anything?

A large part of him wanted to forget her and get on with his life, but a hard examination of the facts made it plain to him that he did not have much of a life left. Assuming that they would be able to fight off SecOps and send Abe's team home, Norm would be left an outcast among outcasts. Jake had made it clear that the Na'vi did not want to have any further involvement with humans, old friends or otherwise, but that they were welcome to stay on Pandora. Even with Max and Luke's intervention, the avatar team continued to give him the cold shoulder.

The alternative was to go back to Earth and try to restart his life there, but if he departed Pandora with Abe and his team, he would get back to Earth more than twenty years after leaving it. It was unlikely that RDA had kept up with his back pay – even if Abe had been honest about that, what good would Abe's promises be when he was expelled? – and most of his friends would have long since established their own families and careers.

Starting over on Earth was about as attractive as sticking it out on Pandora, but Norm had plenty of time to think about it.

A few days after his delivery to Parker, Hell's Gate received the communication that they had been waiting ten months for. "ISV _Event Horizon_ to Colony One. We're in orbit and awaiting instructions."

Norm and Laura took Abe out of his holding cell and escorted him to his makeshift office to make contact. When he was seated, Laura pulled out her gun and said, "No heroics."

Abe took a moment to glare at her, contempt evident in his eyes, and then sighed and opened up the communications channel. "_Event Horizon_, this is Abe Scheller."

"I need to authenticate your authority," the person on the other line said. "San Francisco?"

"Virginia."

"Washington?"

"Lincoln."

There was a pause that seemed to drag out forever, but then the ship came back and said, "Authentication confirmed. Boss, it's Talbott."

For a very brief moment, Abe looked relieved, and then the next moment pained. "Hey, Dick," he said. "How'd you get suckered in to this assignment?"

"I volunteered, Boss. Someone has to keep you out of trouble."

Abe covered a sigh with short laughs. "I appreciate it, Dick. But I'm guessing you didn't shoot up in the ranks to command this mission, so who's in charge?"

"That would be Colonel John Gray, and I'm patching you back to him now – although, Boss, he was Navy in a past life, so call him Captain."

A moment later, a much more grizzled voice said, "Is this Director Scheller?"

"That's affirmative, Captain."

Gray chuckled and said, "I take it you got the memo. What's your sitrep, Scheller? Are the renegades neutralized?"

Norm and Abe made eye contact while Laura tightened the grip on her pistol. "Yes, Captain. We've got them ready for transport back to Earth. What are you bringing down with you?"

"I have a full complement of SecOps – one-hundred eighty men – plus fifteen engineers," Gray responded. "We've also got a full cargo bay of equipment, and I'll transmit that inventory list to you in just a few seconds."

"Thank you, Captain. I'll send you the results of our survey of the base. The damage was a bit more extensive than we anticipated, so your men are going to be pressed into construction work to get the base up and running in time for the miners."

Gray did not respond right away. "There's a rumor going around on Earth – popular among the soldiers, too – that the Na'vi licked us ten years ago," he said. "And looking at our surface scans, it doesn't look like there was much of an industrial accident at the facility."

"You're correct on both counts, Captain," Abe replied. "I'll read you in once you're on the surface."

"Well, Scheller, the point is that after a long trip, and those kinds of stories, the men aren't exactly looking for construction work. They want to kick some blue ass."

"No," Abe said. "The situation is not that simple. There will be a time for payback, but it's not now. Your orders are to disembark at my location."

Gray sighed. "All right. You're in command, so we'll do it your way." He paused and continued, "I'm sure you're aware of the storm heading your way, and I'm told that Pandoran weather isn't something to mess around with."

"That's also correct, Captain. The system should be out of here in four days."

"All right, we'll plan to talk again at Oh-Five-Hundred, Twenty-Two November, but contact us if the situation changes."

"Will do."

"_Event Horizon_, out."

Abe cut the communications link and leaned back in his chair. "Are you satisfied?"

"We should let Jake know," Laura said. "He should bring his troops here and make sure we haven't been double-crossed."

Abe shook his head. "If they land and see Na'vi soldiers, there's going to be a fight. That defeats the purpose of a peaceful surrender."

"We'll call Jake anyway and see what he says," Norm replied. "I'll guess that there's going to be a fight anyway."

* * *

Abe stood on the grass-covered landing strip, waiting for the Valkyrie carrying the SecOps crew to emerge in the sky. Norm and a few of the other avatar drivers were with him, posing as his team, in order to observe the proceedings and make sure their deception was complete. Once the soldiers were disembarked and in their quarters, the reality of the situation would be revealed to them.

While waiting, he turned to Norm and asked, "Are you nervous?"

"Should I be?"

"There are twenty of you trying to disarm and keep at bay one-hundred eighty pumped up soldiers?" Abe snorted and said, "Yeah, you probably should be." He paused and asked, "Is Jake coming?"

Norm shook his head. "He was convinced that you had him pegged for a sucker, so he's boosting his defenses."

Abe nodded. He did not have Jake pegged for a sucker, but he did not have any reason to believe that Jake trusted him enough to show up. "That's fair," he said with a nod.

Norm raised an eyebrow. "Were you trying to trick him?"

"No," he replied. "I'm just saying that I'd probably make the same decision if I were him."

A few minutes passed before the Valkyrie appeared, moving slowly. As Hell's Gate's automated air traffic control had long ago stopped working, the pilot had to manually bring the craft in – and that could not be done at more than a crawl. Eventually, the pilot maneuvered the giant airship to land a few yards in front of Abe and the others.

Once the powerful engines powered down, the rear bay door opened, and Abe approached the two soldiers who disembarked first, and they were soon followed by the fifty eight other soldiers the Valkyrie accommodated. He immediately recognized his old office guard, Dick Talbott, and took the older soldier for Captain Gray.

"Scheller?" Gray asked.

"That would be me," Abe replied, shaking his hand. "Welcome to Hell's Gate."

"Thank you." Gray turned to Dick and said, "Please place him under arrest."

"Yes, sir."

Abe's heart skipped a beat. He furrowed his brow and asked, "Excuse me?"

"You're being charged with providing material support to terrorists," Gray said. "We know you've flipped sides." He turned to the soldiers and indicated Norm and the other renegades, "Detain them, too."

He was too stunned to resist as Dick pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed him. "Captain, where are you getting your information?"

"We got a message from a Parker Selfridge shortly after we arrived in orbit saying that you were compromised," Gray replied. He turned to watch the renegades' detainment and added, "I'm sure we'll get it sorted out."

"Parker is the last person you want to be getting your information from, Captain," Abe protested.

Gray shrugged and said, "He was able to get us the location of the Na'vi, so that makes him pretty reliable in my book." He grinned and said, "I'm sure you've already let them know we're here, but we're going to stop by and say, 'Hi,' for ourselves." He nodded at Dick. "Take him and the others inside, and bring out Parker. I want him to walk me through what _really_ needs to get done."

* * *

Something had gone wrong.

Jake still considered Norm a friend, but until now he was unclear about just how deeply involved he had become in Abe's team. He had not lied when he told Norm that he was preparing the Omaticaya warriors to defend their home, but he neglected to say that he was going to bring a team to personally observe the alleged surrender proceedings.

The storm had provided ample cover to allow him to position an element of his _kunpongu_ warriors just outside the base a few nights earlier. They had been observing their activities ever since.

Watching from the fence's perimeter, Jake watched Abe's arrest. He had expected a surprise, but this was all together odd. He also watched as Norm and the others were detained, which only served to confuse him further. However, he was relatively certain that things had not gone as expected for either Abe or Norm.

Perhaps orders had been given above Abe's level, which could only mean bad things for the Omaticaya.

Jake crawled on his stomach away from the thin vegetation at the base's edge and back into the jungle, where his group of warriors waited for him. "We're going to go in," he said.

Most all of his warriors grinned at the announcement, but they did not let their excitement take priority over noise discipline.

"Atané, go back and tell the others to wait for our signal. The rest of you, follow me."

She went off to inform Jake's secondary team, while he and his advance group of warriors made their way around the base's perimeter, staying in the jungle to avoid detection. It took a while to make the journey from the observation point to the insertion point, but they had no choice. There was only one way in to the base, and they had to make it before the mercenaries reactivated the gate's automated turrets.

When Khutxo was brought back to the clan, he pledged his loyalty to Jake. In the days that followed, he told Jake how, years earlier, he had convinced the people who were tasked to help rebuild Hell's Gate's fences to create weak points in case the people ever decided to attack the base. When Jake scouted the perimeter the night before, he found that Norm and the others had discovered and repaired most of these points, except for one.

The breach was well concealed near the old avatar holding area, and out of sight from the SecOps troops who were unloading the Valkyrie. Jake quietly slipped his team through the breach, and then used hand signals to direct them to points around the base. He hoped to cut off as many avenues of escape as possible.

Jake and a few others made their way close to the landing zone, close enough to hear the chatter of the SecOps.

"Sir, we've got the renegades, kids, and defectors rounded up," a soldier said. "I've put together a detachment to guard them while the rest reinforce the main assault."

"Thank you, Talbott," an older soldier replied. "What about the perimeter?"

"We're staring patrols in five minutes."

"All right. I'm going to go with the reinforcements. You stay here."

"Yes, sir." One of them stepped away, and then Talbott shouted, "Let's go! Main force, muster up! You move out in ten minutes."

Jake communicated with the others that they had made contact, and the hand signals were quickly repeated throughout the base. He ordered his warriors to give Atané her signal, and to prepare for their attack. A minute later, what a casual listener might take for a prolemuris cry rang out from the jungle.

Jake slowly brought his finger to rest on his gun's trigger.

* * *

Parker took a great deal of pleasure as Abe, his loyalists, and the renegades were herded into the kitchen by the SecOps team. They might have resisted if the kids were not also being herded with the group. That kept them from becoming violent.

The only ones not being moved with the group were Scott and Miguel. He had offered Dawn and Kim a chance to join his team once SecOps had released them from confinement, but they refused. He had not bothered to extend the offer to Amy.

The many people shouted various curses at him, but he calmed them down when he ordered the SecOps team to level their guns on them. He stood on a chair to address them. "Thank you all for coming today," he said. "I'm sure a lot of you are confused, so let me clear up what's going on. First of all, I am in charge." He looked at Abe and grinned, "Captain Gray was kind enough to relay your plan back to Savage, and I've been told to tell you, 'You're fired.'"

"Parker, you don't have a goddamned clue what you're doing," Abe said. "You're going to have made a lot of people come a long way just to get killed."

He chuckled and said, "That might mean something to me if you were still in charge, Abe. But once again, you're fired." He paused and said, "Wait, let me just say it one more time. You're fired."

"And you're fucked," Abe replied.

"I doubt it. As for the rest of you – well, even you too, Abe – these guys have some long-standing business to take care of. But once they're back, you will be boarded onto the Valkyrie, and sent home. Won't that be great, kids? You'll finally get to see where people come from."

One of the children threw a salt shaker at him, but it missed wildly.

"That's what I thought," he said with a short laugh. "So, these four guys will be looking after you in the meantime, so I suggest getting comfortable." He looked at Norm and said with a nod towards Amy, "Think of it as an opportunity to work out your issues with your girlfriend."

"You son of a bitch!" Norm shouted. He lunged forward, but one of the SecOps soldiers swung the butt of his gun around and hit him squarely in the stomach. The soldier followed that up with a knee to his groin and an elbow to the back of his neck, completing Norm's fall to the ground.

Parker laughed and said, "And that completes our demonstration on why you should take this seriously." He waved and added, "Thank you, and see you later." He left the kitchen with Miguel and Scott, leaving the SecOps guards to do their work.

"Why are we going out there?" Scott asked. "It's going to be a madhouse."

"I want to see how those monkeys feel about being tied to a post," he said. "But there's not going to be a rescue for them." He paused when they got to the airlock and turned to them. "You don't have to come along if you don't want to," he said.

Miguel shook his head and said, "I want to see this thing through." Scott took a deep breath before he nodded in agreement.

Parker grinned and handed them exopacks, then exited the habmod. "Let's go!" Talbott shouted as they stepped out. "Main force, muster up! You move out in ten minutes."

At the same time, Captain Gray walked towards Parker as the soldiers began to assemble. "If you're coming, you're going to keep your ass on the Valkyrie at the landing zone. We don't need civilians getting in the way of this operation."

"Fine by me," Parker said. "Just make sure to get me when you've got Jake secured. I want to be the one to let him know he's coming back to Earth."

"One of the ground assault vehicles will come back to pull you out of the landing zone." He nodded towards the Valkyrie, "Now, head out."

Parker and the others headed towards the Valkyrie while Gray and Talbott briefed the soldiers. Only a few steps away, however, he was stopped by a shout of, "Incoming!"

He turned and saw ten banshees descending on the base, each with two Na'vi riding them. Much to his horror, he could see the Na'vi were wielding guns, and he thought he could make out smiles as they brought their weapons to bear on the soldiers out in the open. The SecOps forces scattered as the Na'vi opened fire on the tarmac, their warcries barely audible above the noise of their machine guns.

A handful of soldiers fell in the initial barrage, but those who did not attempted to return fire. However, their aim was confused and uncoordinated, and it looked to Parker as though all the banshees, and their Na'vi passengers, got away without a scratch.

He had thought – he hoped – that was the worst of it. However, once the banshees were out of sight, the base erupted in gunfire as Na'vi emerged from a number of hiding spots and attacked the soldiers.

"Jesus Christ!" Parker shouted. "How the fuck…?"

"It doesn't matter," Scott said, interrupting him. "We're dead if we don't fight back."

"With these?" Parker said, patting the pistol on his side.

"It's better than nothing."

"We should just stay in the Valkyrie," Miguel said. "We've got cover in there."

"It's the biggest damned target out here!" Scott said. "What do you think they're going to come for?"

Parker was about to weigh in, when he saw a group of Na'vi emerge from behind the habmod. Most of the Na'vi in this group turned to engage the confused and surprised soldiers scattering about the base, but two of them saw Parker and his team, and the drew down on them.

Miguel and Scott had also caught sight of the group, and they were quick to crouch down and open fire. Parker, meanwhile, threw himself onto his stomach. Bullets whizzed overhead and ricocheted off the airship. His mind was shouting for him to pull out his gun and return fire, but all he could do was close his eyes and scream.

"We've gotta move!" Scott shouted, grabbing Parker by his arm and forcing him to his feet. He opened his eyes and saw the two Na'vi on the ground. One was holding his stomach and writhing in agony, the other was motionless.

He ran with Scott and Miguel towards the bases hangars, a few bullets – aimed or otherwise, he did not bother to turn and check – following them.

"What do we do?" he asked, panic rising in his voice.

"Relax," Scott said. "We're obviously not taking the Valkyrie out of here, but we need to rendezvous with the main force. These guys are toast."

"How are we going to do that?"

"We can take the bird I fixed up," Miguel said. "It'll get us there quickly, faster than their dragons will be able to chase us down."

"Is it armed?" Scott asked.

He nodded. "There's a gun for the side door."

"Then we'll do that," Scott said. "Get inside, and get it running."

They hurried to the hangar's flight deck. Miguel jumped into the pilot's seat and started up the aircraft while Scott jumped into the passenger bay and locked the gun to a mount. "Open the hangar doors, Parker!" he shouted.

Parker did as he was ordered, activating the control to open the doors. He then hurried to the Samson to take the passenger's seat. As he ran, however, a Na'vi warrior entered the hangar from the side door Parker and the others had used a moment earlier.

He turned to face the Na'vi and was immediately gripped with fear. The warrior was beaming from behind his painted face as he casually discarded his gun and drew a knife from his belt.

His heart pounded as the he Na'vi let out a cry and charged forward, but at the last possible instant Parker managed to pull out his gun and, in his panic, fired wildly. Momentum from his ill-fated charge carried the warrior forward, and he collapsed on top Parker.

He crawled out from underneath the alien and, for good measure, emptied the remainder of his clip into the body. When the gun was empty, Parker threw the weapon at the body, then continued, shaking, towards the aircraft.

"That was harsh, man." Miguel said as Parker took his seat. He was too stunned to offer a response. Miguel finished preparing the aircraft and, as the engines came to life, shouted, "We're good!"

"Get us out of here!" Scott yelled over the whine of the engines. Parker took a moment to concentrate on the radio, which was alive with a multitude of orders and panicked shouting from soldiers. Parker agreed with Scott's assessment that the SecOps force was done for.

The Samson turned towards the opened hangar doors, and outside stood a group of Na'vi, waiting for them. "Just go over them!" Parker yelled.

"Turn so I can get a shot!" Scott yelled back.

The Na'vi were less confused about what to do. They crouched down and, as the Samson pushed forward, fired into the aircraft. The canopy screen shattered. The force of the bullets pushed Miguel back into his seat; and with his hands still on the controls, the Samson's nose pitched up. The aircraft crashed through the roof and tumbled end over end.

Parker was still alive when the Samson crashed into the ground mere feet in front of the Valkyrie, but broken in several places. He managed to crawl out of the wreckage, but he had barely gotten to his feet when a banshee landed in front of him.

Although the banshee hissed at him and looked at him with hungry eyes, he managed to look past the jaws of the beast and took notice of the warrior riding atop it. His eyes went wide with a mix of surprise and horror. Neytiri, painted for war and more pregnant than any would-be combatant ought to be, had an arrow drawn and aimed at his head.

Her eyes narrowed at him. "It _was_ your fault," she said, and then released the bowstring.

* * *

Jake took a moment to survey the carnage which had been wrought by his warriors. Bodies lay strewn about the field, and a handful of his warriors were among them. For the humans, however, it had been a quick massacre. A few of the mercenaries had been able to take cover after the initial attack and prolong the fighting; but within a half hour of the first shots, they had succumbed to the inevitable.

Only a handful of the SecOps force had survived, as they had been inside guarding Norm and the others when the attack began. However, once the shooting had started, the would-be prisoners took advantage of the situation and rebelled, turning the tables on the guards.

They stood in front of Jake and under armed guard, hands behind their heads, and awaited Jake's judgment. "Let them live," he said. "Lock them up, and send them back to their ship when we're ready." Laura looked disappointed by the decision, but she took the mercenaries back inside.

"Jake, this isn't all of them," Norm said. "They're sending a force to Hometree. They're going to attack it."

"I know," Jake said. "And we're ready for it."

"How are you ready for it?" Norm asked. "All your soldiers are here!"

"What, you think I trusted him?" Jake said with a nod towards Abe. "This is just a small group. Like I told you when you called me, my warriors are back home, preparing for the defense of our home."

"Jake, if Parker gave Gray our recon reports, then they know your defensive strategy to a man," Abe said. "Your people won't stand a chance."

"You mean the reports you based off of your audio surveillance?" Jake asked. Abe looked surprised, causing Jake to grin and say, "The homing beacon fell out of the drone you lost."

It took a moment for Abe to process, but then he snorted and shook his head. "I told them that they'd be slaughtered," he said.

Jake nodded and replied, "Yeah, they will be."

* * *

Tseyo was perched overlooking the ancient creek bed. Except for those that Jakesully had taken out several nights ago, every Omaticaya warrior was somewhere in this area, waiting for the Sky People to fall into their trap. He had already nocked an arrow for the occasion.

Their orders were to wait for the main element of the _kunpongu_ to attack the Sky People before they were to engage, but as he heard the enemy approaching, he found it difficult to maintain his patience. At that moment, he was startled out of his concentration by a gentle touch on his shoulder.

He turned to see Khutxo beside him. "Wait for them," he said. "They will be in your range very shortly." Tseyo nodded, not sure how to respond. Khutxo gave him another pat on his shoulder and said, "For Mehi'a."

Tseyo managed a partial smile, and then turned his attention back to the creek bed. He heard Khutxo move away to his own position.

Moments later, having been preceded by noise that would rival a stampeding _angtsik_ herd, the Sky People's army appeared. Some of the warriors were riding stiff, dark, legless horses, while others were locked away in metal suits as tall as any Na'vi warrior. These were the horrible things that made the most noise; and they were as terrifying as they were noisy.

Most of the army, however, was on foot. But even they were loud. Their weapons clanged, and they spoke amongst themselves. They moved as a single unit, and that was impressive. However, they were undisciplined among themselves, and that gave Tseyo hope.

He stayed motionless and silent as he watched them scan the jungle for any sign of Tseyo and his brethren. More than three times one of the Sky People looked right at him; but he figured that they must be blind behind their masks, for at no time did they point out his position for the other fighters.

They passed by without harassment, and shortly after the last of them was out of sight, the jungle came alive with sharp cracks of thunder. He looked up to see the storm, but then he corrected himself and tried to look up the way to where the _kunpongu_ was positioned.

He could not see their devastation, but he could hear it. A short time later, one of the legless horses screamed past him, one of the Sky People directing fire from on top. Others began to run by.

That was as good enough a cue for Tseyo as he needed.

He let out a cry and quickly pulled his arrow back. He aimed for the one controlling the fire, and let his arrow fly. It hit the Sky Person's chest, knocking him off his horse and pinning him to the ground.

More arrows and spears flew out of the trees. The Sky People who were not killed immediately turned their weapons towards the tree tops, but they had no precision, no clue what or where to attack. However, their arrows were enough to knock a few of Tseyo's brothers and sisters from their positions, but not enough to scare him into thinking the battle was lost.

He readied another arrow and fired at one of the few remaining Sky People. For the second time, his aim was true, and the warrior was thrown to the ground by the force of the impact.

As quickly as the battle had started, it was over. And not a moment after it had ended, Tseyo and the others descended from their positions and began to celebrate their victory.

The celebration would carry on for two nights.

* * *

Abe shook his head again. "It didn't have to be this way," he said. "We could have figured out how to end this peacefully."

"It was always going to end like this," Jake replied. "The people weren't going to sit back and let their home be exploited any further."

Neytiri joined the group, much to Abe's surprise. Breaking the flow of the conversation, he said, "You're kidding me."

"Our child will grow up to be a strong warrior," Neytiri replied. "Now it will know battle before it has ever been born. Now it will know how to fight you if you come back here."

"Your kid might not have to worry about that," Abe said.

Jake and even Norm, looked surprised. "What, no speech about the suffering back home on Earth?" Norm asked. "No righteous indignation about the Na'vi not giving a damn about the future of humanity?"

"It's not that I don't think it wasn't right for us to try and carve out our survival here," he replied. "And I still believe that we could have found a way to do it without so many people having to die in the process – whether or not you believe me. But Savage is going to be waiting for an update on how his attack went, and when he doesn't hear back, he's going to send an army here." Abe paused and said, "Jake, Neytiri, your people aren't going to have to worry about their home being exploited because he's just going to wipe you out."

"How?" Norm asked. "We're going to turn the miners back, and then there won't be enough unobtanium to power the rest of the fleet."

"There's plenty of it back on Earth," Abe said. "RDA's been hoarding Pandorium in order to keep energy prices high. I don't know how much they have, but I'm sure they'll have enough of it to fire up the fleet and send an army."

"Then why did he go through the trouble of sending you?" Jake asked. "If he's had the ability to do this all along, why screw around?"

"My guess? If he used the Pandorium reserves to engage the fleet, then people would start to ask where all that energy came from. His secret would be out, and he'd have nothing to show for it. But now that he's really backed into a corner—," he shrugged and let his voice trail off.

"You've thought this through," Jake said.

Abe looked at Norm and replied, "I've had a lot of time to think."

"We will always fight for our home," Neytiri said. "No matter how many of your people will come here, we will fight them off."

"I know you believe that, Neytiri," Abe said, "But if you haven't noticed, humans – Sky People – are a stubborn bunch. We don't give up."

She nodded and said with a grin, "Yes, it is very irritating." Abe just smiled in response.

Norm chuckled and said, "Well, now that Savage has fired you, would you like a job helping us think through this dilemma?"

Abe sighed and said, "No."

"You're in the line of fire, too, you know," Jake said. "I don't think you just want to sit around and wait for the inevitable."

"You are right about that," Abe said with a short laugh. "But first and foremost, I've seen what happens when Savage fires an executive. He doesn't just give him a pink slip, he sends a message." Abe took a deep breath and continued, "I need to get home and look after my own."

Jake nodded. "That's fair."

"So what's the second reason?" Norm asked.

"The second reason is that, like I've said, I've already had a lot of time to think about this, so I don't need to stick around and think about it some more."

"If you're not leaving right away, would you mind sharing some of your thoughts with the rest of us?" Jake asked.

Abe paused and said, "That all depends if any of you are interested in coming home with me."

* * *

A/N – And that's all he wrote for this one. Thank you for your support. The next story is going to be several months out, I'm sorry to say, as life takes priority.


	21. Preview The Enemy of My Enemy

_Avatar_ is the property of people who aren't me. This work of fiction is not authorized by those people.

A/N – Below is the first part of chapter one of "The Enemy of My Enemy," the continuation of, "The Endeavors of Art." I am providing this update principally to notify all who have this story on their alert lists to the continuation, rather than risk an account ban by sending scores of PMs to the subscribers.

* * *

Jake's warriors had performed well above his expectations. They had achieved total surprise over the SecOps soldiers at Hell's Gate, and in the short battle had annihilate all but a few; and those survivors had been taken prisoner by Norm and the former avatar team.

In the years leading up to the Resource Development Administration's return to Pandora, Norm made sure the Omaticaya were supplied with a respectable arsenal of human weaponry. The losses they had sustained half a generation earlier in the battle against the army of long-dead Colonel Quaritch had convinced the Na'vi people that, in their next engagement, they needed more than traditional weapons and the hope of Eywa's intervention if they were going to survive.

What had surprised Jake, however, was that RDA had not come back to Pandora with an armada of ships. They had sent one man with a team of specialists. Abe Scheller – "The Irritating One," as Neytiri had named him after their first encounter – had been given the job of pacifying the Na'vi in order to pave the way for RDA's second attempt to exploit Pandora's natural riches.

To do accomplish his mission, he outwardly promised peace with the Na'vi – and, in some cases, appeared to make _bona fide_ attempts to achieve it. Yet all the while he sowed mistrust and discord among Norm and his colleagues in order to break the flow of information getting back to Jake.

On top of that, he sent a former, skilled Special Forces soldier to infiltrate the Omaticaya through a new kind of avatar. The new avatar had its driver's consciousness was downloaded, thus requiring no external support. That infiltrator, Devon Angler, had nearly succeeded in putting an end to Jake's reign as _olo'eyktan_, had he not made the mistake of becoming too deeply involved in his assumed identity.

Devon attempted to secure the unquestioned trust of the people by mating with a beloved acolyte, Mehi'a. When they formed their _tsaheylu_, however, she saw him as he really was – and he killed her for that. Unfortunately for him, she was able to give her consciousness up to Eywa before she died, allowing others to discover Devon's deception.

He was hunted down and executed, his body discarded in the jungle for the animals to feast upon.

Abe and the rest of his team might have likewise been executed, had Norm not intervened and insisted that human justice prevail. Their crime, he argued, was to have chosen the wrong side of the fight for Earth's preservation.

Jake had done all he could to try and forget about Earth, everything he could do to submit himself to Eywa and live among the people as one of them; but the fact remained that he was born a human. He had been one of the Sky People. Back in that life, he had been just as ready to help RDA to in order to satisfy his own needs. The people had given him the chance to atone for the pain his deceptions had brought down on them, and he was unable to take that opportunity away from Abe and his people.

Whether or not they had made the most of that opportunity was still up in the air. Jake had spared their lives only after Abe had agreed to keep RDA's mercenaries contained, and it was a bargain which had infuriated Parker Selfridge. Abe had brought him out of his exile in order to give him the chance to correct the mistakes he had made during his tenure as Hell's Gate's administrator. Instead, he managed to notify RDA's leadership about Abe's deal with Jake, and in so doing put into motion the second great massacre of humans on Pandora.

Parker, along with a number of defectors from Abe's team, had paid a heavy price for his decision. In his attempt to escape the slaughter, he was shot out of the sky by a contingent of warriors at Neytiri's command; and when he emerged only slightly wounded from the wreckage, she made sure that the last thing to pass through his mind was her arrow.

In addition to ordering an assault on the people, RDA's leadership disowned Abe. However, if they had assumed that he would simply return to Earth and submit to their punishment – which assumed that they had not arranged for a more expedient form of termination – they were wrong.

In the months that he had been on Pandora, Abe had demonstrated to Jake an uncanny ability to think several steps ahead of his opponents – even though Jake had to concede that, for many people, it was not difficult to think far ahead of him. But as he stood amidst the carnage of the day's battle with Norm and Neytiri, who was in fact sitting, given her advanced stage of pregnancy, Abe managed to surprise him once again by demonstrating just how much thought he had already given to the consequences of betraying his former bosses.

Abe went on at length, and in detail, with his plans for exacting revenge on RDA. Jake was as taken aback by the scope of Abe's planning as much as he was by how calm Abe appeared in describing it. Unlike too many people who would smile in awe of their own genius as they laid out their master plans, or who, like Norm, would become increasingly uncomfortable with the stench of death that had begun to settle over the base, Abe plodded along like a teacher giving a lesson to a class, and a boring teacher at that.

The plan he described was as intricate as it was dangerous, leading Jake to conclude at the end of the demonstration, "You're insane."

After going so long without a hint of emotion, Abe grinned and replied, "Thank you."

"No, that wasn't a compliment," Jake emphasized. "I mean that you obviously went crazy in that holding cell. You're one-hundred percent bonkers."

Abe's grin faded. "Do you or do you not agree that the only way to ensure the safety of this place is to get rid of RDA at its source?"

"Of course I do, but you would need an army to do it – and they practically control the Army!"

"Jake's right," Norm said. "You can't just walk in and take down the largest quasi-government on Earth."

"Yet that didn't stop you and Jake's brother from trying," Abe replied.

Shortly before the battle against Quaritch, Norm had detailed for Jake the plans he had made with Tom, whose death was the reason for Jake being on Pandora in the first place. They had intended to use their positions in the avatar program to gather evidence of RDA's atrocities to be used as evidence in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, that plan literally failed to leave Earth, but Jake saw to it that Tom's intentions were fulfilled.

"Yeah, and it wouldn't have worked out, now would it have?"

Abe described for them moments earlier how similar plots had been hatched and foiled several times in RDA's history. If Norm and Tom had carried on as planned, it likely would have been Abe, in his former role as RDA's dreaded Chief of Asset Management and Information Security, who would have taken them down – if not agents of the many world governments who conspired with RDA to sustain its monopoly on Pandora.

"No, it wouldn't," Abe said casually.

"So why will it be any different this time around?" Jake asked.

"Because while RDA has plenty of experience dealing with disgruntled employees, it's not accustomed to having senior executives come back from the dead."

Jake frowned and said, "That's not all that convincing."

"The Trojans didn't see the horse coming," Abe replied. "The British didn't see Washington bearing down on Trenton, New York didn't see the planes, and nobody saw Turkey's march on Iran. Surprise attacks have a very nasty way of being effective."

"Nine-Eleven's debatable," Norm said. Jake and Abe exchanged a stunned look before turning to Norm, silently asking for him to provide further explanation. "What?" he said, scoffing. "You guys think we've been told everything?"

Abe sighed, shook his head, and then continued on his original point. "Nobody knows RDA's weaknesses better than I do. Short of Chairman Savage finding Jesus, RDA isn't going to give up. The fight has to be brought to them."

"Why should we trust you to do it?" Neytiri asked, making no attempt to mask the hostility of her question. "You have not said you care for the people, only for yourself."

Abe took a deep breath, crossed his arms and replied, "Honestly, Neytiri, I don't care much for the Na'vi." He nodded towards a group of Jake's warriors who were occupying themselves by divesting the SecOps corpses of their more precious, worldly possessions. "I haven't been given a whole lot of reasons to."

Norm snorted and said, "You were the one who came down here with your encyclopedic knowledge of Native Americans. Welcome to Little Bighorn, Custer."

"What you see is because of your deceptions," Neytiri continued. "If you had taken a different path, perhaps you would see the people for who they are, not who you imagine."

"The road less traveled doesn't exist," he said. Neytiri, like Jake, did not get the reference, and Abe did not take the time to explain it. He only sighed and said, "You can trust me because it benefits both of us to have RDA come crashing down, even if our reasons are different."

"I am not convinced," she replied.

"That's why I've offered one of you to come with me to make sure the job gets done."

Jake let out a short laugh and said, "I'm definitely not going back to Earth, if for no other reason than because I'm not leaving my child."

"I figured as much," Abe replied. "I meant 'you' as in 'you, Na'vi.'"

"The people will not go," Neytiri said. "It is you Sky People who travel between worlds, but our love for Eywa, and Eywa's love for us, will keep us here."

"How were you planning to get one of them to Earth anyway?" Norm asked. He added with a crooked smile, "I mean, I'm sure you have it all planned out, of course."

"The chances of successfully transferring Devon's consciousness to his avatar body and back with our equipment were one in sixteen," Abe replied. "Our ship's cryobay has one Na'vi-prepared chamber."

Neytiri protested again. "This is not our way," she said. "Too many of the people have sacrificed themselves in the fight to save our world. We will not send one to die for yours."

"Our worlds are linked, now," Abe said. "If you want to ensure the safety of this world, one of you has to come back to ours to testify about what's happened here."

"We have tons of evidence already," Norm replied. "We don't need to bring one of the Na'vi back to prove any of this."

Abe chuckled. "A moment ago you were ready to sell us on the false flag of Nine-Eleven, and now you're willing to buy that all of RDA's skeptics will readily convince themselves that one of their executives went rogue and, of his own accord, staged an attack to dismantle their Pandora operations? Who's to say all your evidence isn't manufactured like the rest of RDA's propaganda?"

"Who's to say that the Na'vi you bring back isn't just an actor in an avatar's body?" Norm replied pointedly. "Maybe you've just found another Special Forces guy who knows how to play the part."

Abe did not respond right away, slowly nodding his head while he digested Norm's argument. Eventually he said, "That could well be the case, but somehow I think even the deepest skeptics will know the real thing when they see it."

Neytiri still did not look convinced, but Jake was starting to understand the point – uncomfortable though he was with it. The people could not possibly conceive of a place like Earth, and overwhelmingly would not want anything to do with it if given the choice. However, there was always the chance of a too curious minority.

Jake sighed after he thought about Abe's suggestion. He looked at Neytiri and said, "We should let the people decide this."

Her eyes went wide at his suggestion. "You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "It is a sacrifice for no good."

"If someone is willing to sacrifice in order to guarantee that the people live in peace, we shouldn't deny them the chance because we think it's suicidal."

Neytiri shook her head. "They won't go," she said.

"Then _T'ngyute_ will just have to come up with another plan," he replied. "We won't force the people to accept this, but we should give them the choice."

"It's getting late," Abe said. "I'll leave it to you guys to figure out who, if anybody, will come back with me." He looked at Norm and said, "In the meantime, the Kansas City Shuffle needs a body."

* * *

A/N – Once again, this is the last update for "The Endeavors of Art." Please adjust your story alerts accordingly, hopefully to add, "The Enemy of My Enemy!"


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